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Evangelistic Sermons 

By 



J. WILBUR CHAPMANj D. D, 

// 



Compiled and Edited by 
EDGAR WHITAKER WORK, D. D. 




New York Chicago 

Fleming H. Revell Company 

London andj Edinburgh 



Copyright, 1922, by 
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 



C.5V5" 



Trinted in United States of America, 



New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. 
London: 21 Paternoster Square 
Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street 



JUL 151922 



©CI. A 6 7771 6 
-.1 



EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 

¥k 

EARLY in his ministry J. Wilbur Chap- 
man was called to do the work of an 
evangelist. Even while he was in the 
actual pastorate of churches, his ministry was 
evangelistic in tone and method. When the time 
came he gave up a pastorate of signal usefulness 
and power in New York City, and devoted his full 
energy to evangelistic work in the churches. No 
man of his time did more to promote the aggressive 
preaching of the gospel of salvation. In his own 
denomination he is credited, together with John H. 
Converse, with starting a movement for community 
and pastoral evangelism which is not likely to 
spend its force in many years — a movement strong 
enough in fact to change to an important degree 
the very character of a great Christian body. He 
was an intense lover of the Church, and a staunch 
advocate of the ministry of the Church. Believing 
so thoroughly in the divine origin and authority of 
the Church, he never threw stones into the well 
that gives water to the world. That he gave to 
evangelism so much of spiritual dignity and grace, 
was due to his own profound respect for religious 
propriety as well as to his singularly fine and noble 
personality. It was not in him to do anything 

otherwise than decently and in order. With him 

5 



6 EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 

the preaching of the gospel was never trivial: least 
of all could it partake of anything clownish. He 
was quiet, both in manner and speech. It was 
never necessary for him to shout to produce an 
impression. If he studied the art of making im- 
pressions, it was nowhere apparent. He was never 
other than a simple, quiet, direct preacher of the 
gospel. Yet there was a deep fervor in his speech 
that made itself felt in his audiences. He pro- 
duced an atmosphere of his own, and it was one of 
profound quiet and responsiveness. 

Few men in the history of evangelism have been 
more truly masters of assemblies. To speak of his 
quiet manner does not mean to say that he lacked 
in aggressiveness. On the contrary, he was richly 
gifted in the persuasive ways of evangelism. He 
could woo his audience by his voice, or even by a 
striking attitude, or a startling word. Many will 
remember his sudden enunciation of such words — 
as " Hear me ! " and " Listen ! " He well under- 
stood the latent dramatic power of the gospel. At 
times he was vividly dramatic. Often his language 
was picturesque and appealing. He could tell a 
simple incident or story in such a way as to melt 
strong men to tears. There were occasions when 
he burst into unusual utterance and method. Fre- 
quently he would say to an audience that he would 
gladly change his method, if only he could win 
souls. Like the Apostle Paul, he was willing him- 
self to become almost reprobate in sensationalism 



EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 7 

if by that means he could persuade others. Never- 
theless, the foundation of his work was the quiet 
persuasiveness of a heart deeply in earnest, and 
filled to overflowing with a passion for souls. It 
was not necessary for him to resort to mere by- 
play. Soul-winning was far too impressive a proc- 
ess to be punctuated with gales of laughter. No 
one ever went away from his meetings with a mere 
feeling of having been entertained. He meant that 
every sermon, every prayer, every song, should re- 
mind men of the Saviour's call. 

It is not difficult to state some at least of the ele- 
ments of Dr. Chapman's power as an evangelistic 
preacher. He believed profoundly in the Word of 
God, and preached it fearlessly to men. He taught 
with tremendous realism the power of sin and the 
certainty of judgment. With equal passion he 
preached the doctrines of grace. A man may be a 
great sinner, but he has a great Saviour. The old 
message of faith and repentance faithfully reiter- 
ated brought many thousands to the Saviour. He 
was careful to explain that repentance means turn- 
ing away from sin, as well as feeling sorry for sin. 
The doctrinal background of his preaching revealed 
his careful training in theological truths, but it 
was doctrine brought to the level of common under- 
standing. One is often amazed at the skill with 
which he teaches profound truths of religion in ut- 
terly simple fashion. 

His desire to see men saved was at the root of 



8 EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 

his passionate preaching. He knew that men were 
lost without Christ, and he preached to lost men 
with the passion of a true ambassador of God. 
Close to this deep passion of his heart for the souls 
of men, was his power of pathos. He readily ad- 
mitted that he was emotional, but emotionalism 
with him was not mere excitement. What he had 
was depth of feeling, great tenderness of sympathy, 
strong humanistic understanding of life — in one 
word, pathos. The word does not necessarily mean 
tears; certainly it does not mean loose and irre- 
sponsible utterance. In Chapman's case it was ac- 
companied by a voice of extraordinary quality. It 
was musical, yet it was more than musical. It was 
sympathetic, yet even this does not express all that 
it was. There was a wooing note about it, a pro- 
found tenderness of feeling, an echoing persuasive- 
ness, such as are found in but few human voices. 
He could hush an audience into deep stillness with 
a word. Without striving for effect, he could speak 
single words so that one would remember them. 
His pronunciation of the Master's name — " Jesus * 
— was always deeply impressive. 

The unusual richness of his voice, together with 
his vivid imagination, and his intimate apprecia- 
tion of humanity's varied life, gave him remark- 
able power in reciting incidents, stories and experi- 
ences that were related to his themes. From a wide 
knowledge of men he gathered many narratives of 
life which he used with telling power in his ser- 



EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 9 

mons. In this art of sermonic narrative, indeed, he 
has had few equals. Whether he turned to the 
scenes and persons of the Scripture, or to the ex- 
periences of every-day life, he made his hearers 
understand the realism of the gospel he preached. 
Thus his preaching came to have personal and 
tangible values, that remained in men's hearts. 

Not the least of the elements of his power was 
his reliance upon prayer and the profound effect 
of the Holy Spirit's direct ministry with souls. It 
was scarcely possible to hear him preach on his 
favorite subjects of sin, repentance, faith, the Holy 
Spirit, the love of God, the saving power of Christ 
and the cross, the return of the Lord in glory, with- 
out hearing the echo of spiritual voices from afar. 

It is remarkable that a man, who was naturally 
timid and shrinking in his own nature, who loved 
quiet and privacy rather than the murmur of great 
assemblies, should have been so powerfully used of 
God with the multitude. His evangelistic ministry 
carried him to almost every corner of his own land. 
His work extended also to Canada. Calls came to 
him again and again from lands over the sea. He 
preached the gospel in England, Scotland, Ireland, 
and Wales, in Australia, New Zealand and Tas- 
mania, in the Philippine and Fiji islands, in 
Japan, in China, in Korea, in Ceylon. Every- 
where the simplicity and fervor of his message 
gained for him wide and sympathetic hearing. In 
Australia, where he carried on evangelistic work 



10 EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 

twice, the results of his preaching were beyond 
calculation. Certain of Dr. Chapman's sermons 
have had, through frequent repetition, almost a 
world-wide hearing. 

The sermons included in this volume were 
preached in 1916, a little more than two years be- 
fore his death, which occurred in New York on 
Christmas day, 1918. They represent the full 
maturity of his experience, as well as the full 
measure of his power. They are reproduced here 
from stenographic reports made at the time of their 
delivery. The editor has done his utmost to pre- 
serve the form and manner of the evangelist's 
speech, as well as the incidents and atmosphere of 
the meetings as they were conducted by Dr. Chap- 
man and the master of song, Charles M. Alexander. 
The sermons are thus to be read here in their 
spoken form. The action of the preacher may be 
seen, and the presence of the great audience is often 
distinctly felt. 

With the hope that the sermons of our own great 
American evangelist may help to deepen the life of 
many ministers, leaders, and churches in our own 
and other lands, the editor, grateful for the privi- 
lege of preparing them for publication, sends them 
out to the Church at large. 

Edgar Whitaker Work. 
Fourth Presbyterian Church. New York. 





Contents 




CHAPTEE 
I. 


The Master Is Come . 7 T 
John 11 : 28 


PAGE 

. 13 


II. 


Chased Out of the World . 
Job 18: 18 


. 25 


III. 


Eternity ...... 

Isaiah 57 : 15 


. 36 


IV. 


Sowing and Reaping 

Galatians 6 : 7 


. 48 


V. 


" Where Is Abel Thy Brother? " 

Genesis 4 : 9 


. 58 


VI. 


The Accepted Time 
II Cor. 6:2 


. 69 


VII. 


" Prepare to Meet Thy God " . 
Amos 4 : 12 


. 82 


VIII. 


Losing and Finding Jesus . 
Luke 2 : 46 


. 93 


IX. 


Three Great Things . 
II Sam. 12 : 13 


. 105 


X, 


Four Sins ..'.,. 
Isaiah 59 : 2 


. 113 


XI. 


What Men Do With Their Sins 


. 126 



Prov.5:22 
11 



2 


CONTENTS 




CHAPTER 

XII. 


"What Wilt Thou Say? ,? * 
Jeremiah 13: 21 


PAGH 

. 138 


XIII. 


A Neglected Tkuth 
John 3 : 7 


• 148 


XIV. 


"Is It Nothing To You?" . 
Lam. 1 : 12 


. 158 


XV. 


The Precious Blood of Christ . 
I Peter 1 : 19 


. 168 


XVI. 


A Forsaken Leader 

II Tim. 4 : 10 


. 179 



XVII. The Prodigal ...... 194 

Luke 15 : 14 

XVIII. Going Home 206 

Luke 15 : 22 



THE MASTER IS COME 

MY text is in John 11 : 28—" The Master 
is come and calleth for thee." This 
passage takes us to the home in 
Bethany where Jesus loved to he. It has to do 
with the sickness and death of Lazarus, and his 
resurrection from the dead. Some years ago I 
heard a distinguished man of God preach from this 
text. The light of heaven was on his face and the 
fire of heaven was in his message. The outline of 
his sermon remains with me still, and I am going 
to use his outline as I preach to you from this text. 

It must have been a very remarkable family that 
lived in the Bethany home. Martha and Mary and 
Lazarus. It may not have been the largest house 
in Bethany, nevertheless Jesus loved to tarry there. 
If you tell me that you have the finest home in this 
city and Jesus is not there, then it is not the finest. 
If you tell me that yours is a home of poverty and 
Jesus abides with you, then I know that you do not 
mind your poverty» 

No one can think of the Bethany home without 
being deeply touched. Martha and Mary and 
Lazarus and — Jesus! One day there came a cloud, 
the size of a man's hand, over that home in Bethany. 

13 



14 THE MASTER IS GOME 

Lazarus was sick. The cloud increased from day 
to day until it covered all the sky. When the sis- 
ters knew that their brother was sick unto death, 
they called a messenger and sent a message to Jesus. 
They did not say, " Go to the Master and tell Him 
that Lazarus is ill," but they said this, " Lord, be- 
hold, he whom Thou lovest is sick." They knew 
that Jesus would know. How they watched for the 
return of the messenger, but the messenger delayed 
and Lazarus died. In those countries the prepara- 
tions for death must be made very quickly. So 
they laid Lazarus at once in the tomb. When they 
went back to the home everything spoke of him. 
The old couch on which he rested, the manuscripts 
he read, the sandals he wore, the robe that was 
wrapped around him, — everything spoke of Laza- 
rus, and Lazarus was gone. Just when their hearts 
were aching to the breaking, a messenger came 
saying that Jesus was coming to Bethany. Mary 
sat still in the house, but Martha went out to meet 
him, and when she met him she began in a tone of 
complaint, " Lord, if thou hadst been here, my 
brother had not died." It was then that Jesus 
spoke his wonderful words : " I am the resurrec- 
tion and the life. He that believeth in me, though 
he were dead, yet shall he live." Something in what 
he said and in the way he said it touched Martha's 
heart, and she rushed back to her sister and cried 
out in the words of the text, " The Master is come 
and calleth for thee." Then the sisters went out 



THE MASTER IS COME 15 

together to meet Jesus. Presently they were stand- 
ing at the tomb and weeping. Jesus was weeping 
too. Then He stooped down to look into the tomb 
from which the stone had been rolled away, and 
cried out to the dead man, " Come forth." I 
scarcely need to rehearse the story to you because 
it is so familiar. And now I follow the outline that 
I have mentioned, and in so doing we shall find 
suggested in this story the steps that are essential 
to a revival. 

First, when Mary and Martha wanted Jesus they 
did not go themselves to Jesus, but they sent a mes- 
senger. I have always had an idea that if they had 
gone themselves, saying, " Master, Lazarus is sick, 
and if he dies our hearts will be broken and our 
home desolate," perhaps Jesus might have come 
back to Bethany with them at once and stayed 
the disease. They did not go themselves. They 
sent a messenger. And do you know that this is 
the way people expect revivals nowadays? They 
are anxious to have them come, but they do not put 
themselves into the work. They send someone else. 
In earlier days when people desired a revival, they 
waited upon God in fasting and prayer. They even 
spent nights in prayer. They forgot to eat and 
sleep. Fathers and mothers became concerned for 
their children. Wives were in agony about their 
husbands. Ministers stood up to preach and they 
looked like dead men. Often they preached to the 
accompaniment of sobs. When men and women 



16 THE MASTER IS COME 

sought God for themselves in this spirit the founda- 
tions were shaken, the heavens were opened, 
churches were quickened, and souls were converted. 

I believe in the work of the evangelist with all 
my heart. I keep before me two or three ideals. 
My greatest inspiration is Dwight L. Moody. Al- 
most all that I know of evangelistic work I learned 
at his feet. I continue to use his methods. I have 
prayed God through all the years that I might have 
his spirit in preaching. I came in touch with him 
first when I was a university student. Later I sat 
at his feet as a young minister. I entered evangel- 
istic work under his direction. I used to take his 
after meetings when he was unable to take them 
after preaching. Yet much as I believe in evan- 
gelists, there is not an evangelist in the world who 
has the power to bring a revival to your soul. You 
can have it only by seeking after God for yourself. 
We have praying ministers here and splendid com- 
mittees at work, yet the revival tarries and men are 
not saved. People are not asking with sobs: 
" What must I do to be saved ? " Thus far I have 
received just two letters from people who were 
concerned for their children. Let us not make the 
mistake of the sisters in Bethany, who did not go 
themselves to seek after Christ, but sent a messen- 
ger instead. 

Something else is to be noted. Only one of them 
went after all. Martha went, but Mary stayed in 
the house. This is the way revivals begin. No 



THE MASTER IS COME 17 

man has ever known of a whole community being 
roused at once. No minister can tell of a whole 
church being on fire at one time. One will be in- 
terested and will go forth to meet Christ like 
Martha. This city will never be moved by masses 
of people who are interested in revival. No, it will 
begin with individuals. Some minister will have a 
deep concern. He cannot eat or sleep. He feels 
as if he would die. He sits at his desk with tears 
running down his cheeks. Or some old saint of 
God will cry out, saying : " Oh, Lord, revive Thy 
work! Hevive Thy work! " When the revival of 
'57 swept through New York, it was traced to one 
man who spent days on his knees alone with no- 
body to pray with him. Then another came, and 
another, and another, until there was a whole com- 
pany of praying people. New York was stirred. 
Philadelphia was shaken. Chicago was moved. The 
whole American continent was stirred. The revival 
swept across the sea to Great Britain. It started 
with one man on his knees. There may be some 
man in this audience now who feels that his life 
has never counted much for God. To-night he 
feels that he will lay hold of God and never let go. 
This is the way revival begins, with one soul that 
is truly seeking God. 

When I began my ministry in Philadelphia, I 
succeeded Dr. Arthur T. Pierson. It was a peril- 
ous thing for a young man to do. Mr. Moody told 
me that if we could have a revival, everything 



18 THE MASTER IS COME 

would go well. I stood up before the people and 
said : " All the people who are willing to help me, 
come and tell me what you will do." A famous 
merchant was my chief elder, and he said that I 
could have his carriage to make pastoral calls. An- 
other said that he would pay the expenses of the 
advertising. Others came and said that they would 
do this and that. Finally, down the central aisle 
of the church came an old Scotch woman, Mrs. 
Thompson. She took my hand, and, looking at me, 
said : " Do you mind the little room at the head of 
the stairway in my house ? " I said, " Yes, Mrs. 
Thompson." " Very well, minister," she said, 
" every day at twelve o'clock I will be in that little 
room. I will be on my knees, and I will never let 
go of God for you." In a short time I stood in my 
pulpit there and received four hundred and forty- 
four people. Of these, sixteen came as a direct 
result of the personal influence of this old Scotch 
woman. If there is one thing that we need more 
than anything else just now, it is an overmastering 
concern for people who are out of Christ. 

Martha was not fit to talk to Mary until she had 
seen Jesus. At least, she had no influence. Mary 
said : " You might as well go and meet Him and 
talk to Him." Mary herself sat still in the house. 
You know what that means. Teeth set together, 
lips closed. Martha talks and talks, but Mary will 
not move. Finally Martha went out to meet Jesus. 
The moment she caught the look on His face and 



THE MASTER IS COME 19 

heard the ring of His voice, she rushed back with 
a new light in her eyes, a new sound in her voice, 
a new power in her testimony, saying, " The Mas- 
ter is come." When she saw Jesus, she could talk 
to Mary as she had not done before. You want a 
revival, you will have to see Jesus first. Many of 
us want to see this city moved for God. We must 
be alone with him first. Oh, my God, send a re- 
vival ! We beseech thee, send a revival. 

I was preaching in Lincoln, Nebraska, when I 
heard a woman say to her pastor : " I want you to 
pray for my husband and two boys." I was 
shocked when he said, " I shall not do it." When 
I asked him about it he said : " She is the most 
worldly woman in this city. She has led her hus- 
band and two boys into the world after her. It 
would be absolutely useless for me to pray so long 
as she professes to be a Christian and is not." 
This woman went to her home and said to her hus- 
band : " I want you to forgive me. I have been a 
church member, but a false one. I have been a 
professed follower of Christ, but I have denied 
Him. I want you to forgive me." I saw her hus- 
band converted, and the two boys came with their 
father. That man is to-day an elder of a church 
in his city. 

A woman came to her minister in Springfield, 
Ohio, and said : " Pray for my boy." The min- 
ister said : " Absolutely useless." He told her to 
go back and get her boy. I had a letter from her 



20 THE MASTER IS COME 

in which she told me the circumstances. " My boy 
came from the Central Methodist Church, where 
Bishop Bashford was preaching. He said to me: 
' I am about persuaded to be a Christian. If you 
will go with me to-morrow I will settle it.' " His 
mother said to him : " I cannot go, I have an en- 
gagement." Writing to me, she said : " To my 
shame, I confess that my engagement was at a card 
party. I kept the engagement and my boy never 
went back to the Church. I wrote to him like this : 
' Dear Son, — Your mother's heart is broken. When 
you were a little boy, and your father insisted that 
I should have you sleep alone, I put you in the 
cradle and you cried yourself to sleep. When I 
woke I saw your arms stretched out towards me. 
Now, my boy, it is your mother, with her face tear- 
stained, who is stretching out her arms for you. 
Please come/ " I saw the minister ten years after- 
wards and asked him about it, and he said that the 
boy had never come to Christ. He was absolutely 
unmoved. Some of us in this city might speak and 
have no power. Might preach and plead and fail. 
We must get right with God. To your knees ! To 
your knees ! 

When they reached the tomb, Mary and Martha 
and Jesus, the sisters were weeping. Almost the 
sweetest words I know are these : " Jesus wept." 
Tell me this. Did you ever know a revival that did 
not begin with a baptism of tears? Tell me, did 
you ever have a revival by just appointing co mm it- 



THE MASTER IS COME 21 

tees, organizing a choir, and putting money into the 
treasury? $fo! I will tell you when revivals 
come. They come when men begin to say to their 
ministers: Pastor, will you pray for my fam- 
ily? When mothers come to the evangelist and 
say: Pray for my boy. When wives are so 
deeply interested that they say: If my husband 
does not come, I shall die. When signs like these 
appear, then make ready. I remember an experi- 
ence in the village church in New York, where I 
was a pastor in my early ministry. I had been 
preaching for a long time, but there was no yield- 
ing of hearts. I called my officers together and 
asked them to tell me what was wrong. They could 
not answer me. There was an old farmer in the 
congregation whose name was Herman Kramer. 
He could not pray in public, nor could he sing or 
speak. On the next morning after I had talked to 
the officers, he hitched up his horse to the cutter. 
A snow-storm had come in the night, and the fences 
were covered. This man of seventy years of age 
got into his sleigh and drove four miles across the 
fields and fences until he came to a blacksmith 
shop. Hitching his horse on the outside, he went 
in to where th,e young blacksmith was hammering 
away on his anvil. The blacksmith looked up and 
said : " Mr. Kramer, what in the world brought 
you here ? " All he could do was to catch hold of 
the blacksmith's bench with one hand to steady 
himself from falling. Reaching out his other 



22 THE MASTER IS COME 

hand, he said : " Your father and I were friends 
from boyhood. When he died I promised him that 
I would look after you and try to lead you to 
Christ. I have never spoken to you about your 
soul. Oh, Tom ! " That was all he said, and he 
turned back home. It was not long before the 
blacksmith came to the meetings, driving through 
a blinding snow-storm. When he gave his testi- 
mony, he said : " I have never been moved by a ser- 
mon in my life, but when Herman Kramer stood 
there sobbing in my shop, I said to myself, it is 
about time Tom Funston was in earnest himself." 
Revivals come with tears. 

When Jesus stood by the grave, I can hear Him 
saying : " Take ye away the stone." He could 
have done it Himself, but the Master will not do 
what you must do yourself. His word to us to- 
night is : " Take away the stone." I am speaking 
to you all in a kindly spirit, but I testify to you 
that there will never be a revival until many of us 
take away the stones that are in the way. Some 
man has not spoken to his boy about Christ. Some- 
one who calls himself a Christian has never said a 
word to any of his employees. Talk about the diffi- 
culties between capital and labor — I believe there 
would be no such thing if the spirit of Jesus con- 
trolled both sides. 

Take away the stone. When they took away the 
stone at the grave of Lazarus, can you not see Him ? 
Hallelujah ! What a Saviour ! I can shut my eyes 



THE MASTER IS COME 23 

and see Him as He stooped down and looked into 
the tomb. I can hear Him say : " Lazarus, come 
forth." Mr. Moody once said that He called him 
by name because if He had said, " Come forth," 
everybody who was dead would have heard Him 
and gotten up ahead of time. So He said : " Laz- 
arus, come forth." Your boy might be saved to- 
night. Your girl, your husband, if you would take 
away the stone. Oh, if we would begin to do this, 
there would not be an indifferent Christian left in 
this city. The floodgates would be opened and 
God's power would pour forth. Now, my friends, 
I have preached my sermon. I have nothing else 
to say, except that my heart aches and my soul 
longs to see the power of God manifested here. 
Frequently, in Australia, when Mr. Alexander led 
the choir in a song called " Someone's Denying the 
Master To-night," it was hardly necessary for me 
to preach. I saw eight hundred men one night 
pressing their way into the inquiry room and drop- 
ping on their knees to say : " I yield." I saw them 
rising up and singing : " He breaks the power of 
cancelled sin, He sets the prisoner free." 

Let me say the text over again : " The Master 
is come, and calleth for thee." There can be no 
doubt about it. Maybe you are a Christian, and 
maybe you are not. Let us get right with God 
now. Let us open our hearts to His Spirit. 

Blessed God, our Father, in the name of Jesus 
Christ, our Saviour, we pray that the Spirit may 



24 THE MASTER IS COME 

search us to-night. We pray that everything that 
is wrong may be taken away from us. Let the 
Holy Ghost come like a fire upon us. Oh, our 
God, if there is anything in our lives that stands 
in the way, take it from us. Oh, God, do not let 
us drift from Thee. Do not let us be a barrier in 
the way of others. In Jesus' precious Name. 
Amen! 



n 

CHASED OUT OF THE WORLD 

HEKE is a striking Old Testament text — 
Job 18:18: " He shall be driven from 
light into darkness and chased out of the 
world." This eighteenth chapter of Job is a de- 
scription of a sinner, and the eighteenth verse is 
the climax of the story. The man who has resisted 
God has come to the end. There could hardly be 
a better description than this : " He shall be driven 
from light into darkness and chased out of the 
world." A remarkable text found in a remarkable 
book. I have been praying God that the results of 
this service may also be remarkable. 

The driver is Satan, and the one driven is a 
human soul. Let me give you the text once more, 
for if you forget every word of my sermon and sim- 
ply remember the text, you will do well : " He 
shall be driven from light into darkness and chased 
out of the world." This is not the way the evil one 
begins. He begins by wooing. He starts with 
fascination. He never comes at once with hoofs 
of iron, and a tail. He comes in the most sooth- 
ing way possible. He allures in every way, but 
when the end comes, my text is the description of 
his last lash. From light into darkness and 
chased out of the world. 

25 



26 CHASED OUT OF THE WORLD 

I do not believe that men and women would start 
in the ways of sin if they could see the end from 
the beginning. Not a great while ago a young 
woman in Newark, New Jersey, graduated from 
one of our great institutions. She was the child 
of honoured parents. Her father was a man of 
wealth and position. She began a life of sin in col- 
lege. It started with an innocent game of cards 
and an occasional taste of wine. Before she 
reached the end of her college career she was dis- 
graced and dishonoured. "Within a short time after 
she left college the girl, who would naturally have 
taken the honours of her class, was seated in a hovel 
where sin had driven her, within three blocks of 
her father's mansion. Feeling that the end had 
come, she put a revolver to her temple and went 
speeding into the presence of God. I know that no 
girl in this city would start in sin if she saw the 
end. 

My great alarm about sin is this — that we begin 
in such small ways. You have a temper and you 
do not curb it. You have a passion and you do not 
bind it. You have a disposition to say unkind 
words, or to take things that do not belong to you. 
You take the name of God in vain. You look at 
a picture that is not pure. You hear a tale that is 
not clean. I am alarmed, because in that way men 
and women start in the way of sin. When they 
reach the end, my text is a true description. 

Mr. Alexander and I were crossing the Tay 



CHASED OUT OF THE WORLD 27 

river in Scotland a little while ago. We went over 
on the new bridge. It is a marvel of mechanical 
skill. Just as we had fairly gotten on the bridge, 
looking out of a window on the right I saw some 
great iron girders rising out of the river. The 
guard on the train said to me : " That is the wreck 
of the old Taj bridge." I recalled the incident. 
When that old bridge was completed everybody 
said that it was perfect. But one night, while an 
express was thundering across, suddenly the whole 
bridge shivered and went down. Scores of people 
were killed, and many were seriously injured. 
When the Government made a careful study, they 
found that there was just one blister in the iron 
of one of the girders. It had been overlooked, but 
it was enough to weaken the girder. So the Tay 
bridge went down with a crash. One little place 
of weakness may be enough. I say again to-night 
that I am concerned because sin starts in such 
small ways. It seems such an insignificant thing 
to do some little doubtful act, but the first thing 
you know you have taken the next step. There are 
some of our social customs that look innocent, but 
in some cases they lead to gambling. I know what 
I am talking about to-night when I say that it is 
easier to save a drunkard or a libertine than to save 
a gambler. When a man has a passion for gam- 
bling it burns like a fever in his veins. I have had 
men stand before me and say that they would cut 
off their right hands and pluck out one of their 



28 .CHASED OUT OF THE WORLD 

eyes, if they could but undo the harm that had 
been done to them through gambling. Watch 
against the beginnings of sin. 

Let me give you a picture of the text. We are 
in darkness by nature. I know that this is an old- 
fashioned thing to say. Some people tell us that if 
Adam ever existed at all, he never fell, and that 
if he fell he fell upward. But this is not true. 
We know perfectly well that everybody since Adam 
has come into the world with a twist in his nature. 
We are by nature in darkness. We are bound by 
sin. If you do not think you are a slave to sin, 
try to give your sin up. A man staggered up to 
this platform the other night, tears running down 
his cheeks, and when I put my arm around his 
shoulder, he sobbed as if his heart would break. 
" You are going to turn to Christ ? " I asked him. 
"My God!" he replied, "If I only could. If I 
only could." Sin is slavery. ISTot only so, but we 
read in God's Word that we are dead in trespasses 
and sins. 

What is the cure? Some people say that all a 
man needs to be delivered from sin, is better sani- 
tary conditions, better environment, better moral 
surroundings. This cannot be true. And the rea- 
son is plain. The trouble is on the inside of your 
life. Sin is there, and being there it binds you 
and blinds you. It makes you quite helpless. 

But there is a way of escape. I do not think 
that I have told you of the day when we were sum- 



CHASED OUT OF THE WORLD 29 

moned by the Lord Mayor of Sydney, in Australia, 
to hold our services, which were scheduled for the 
afternoon, at noon-time. The Lord Mayor sent 
word that the mounted police would clear the 
streets unless we came at once. The building was 
opened. The crowd was pushed in by the police- 
men and twenty pickpockets, who had been follow- 
ing us around, were shoved in at the same time. 
One of these men heard a sermon for the first time 
in fourteen years. He was impressed. When I 
came out of the service a letter was placed in my 
hands which read like this : " Please pray for me, 
for I am an outcast, a pickpocket, and utterly hope- 
less." I found that man and took him to my room. 
He got down on his knees. I heard him cry to God 
for deliverance. He told me that he had been in 
prison fourteen times. If he went again, it would 
be for life. I saw him converted, there in my own 
room. Before his conversion his eyes were close- 
set, his brow low and unshapely, his fingers long 
and tapering. He would approach you like a sneak 
thief. After conversion the very shape of his face 
seemed to change. His eyes seemed to widen. His 
fingers looked different. When we crossed the sea 
he came to America with us. He began to study 
in a Bible School. He took every prize. One day 
he came to me, saying : " I think I have a call to 
preach." I said : " If you have, I will do every- 
thing to help you that I can." He entered the 
Theological Seminary. Two years later the Presi- 



30 CHASED OUT OF THE WORLD 

dent wrote to me: " Of all the men we have here 
your man is the leader in spiritual power. He is 
the greatest of them all." He graduated with 
honor. Five years from the time he staggered into 
our meeting a pickpocket, a thief, five years to the 
very day, he was seated in a church as an ordained 
minister, celebrating the sacrament of the Lord's 
Supper. To-day he is pastor of a church in thi3 
country, and a magnificent pastor. If sin is bond- 
age and darkness and death, there is a way of es- 
cape, and that is for the sinner to cry out, " God, 
be merciful to me a sinner." 

It is wonderful how the light begins to break 
in, how the Holy Spirit begins to strive. With men 
in their state of darkness the Spirit comes in small 
ways. A man hears the gospel message here and 
something seems to say to him : " I ought to be a 
Christian." The light is already breaking in. An- 
other man says to himself: " If I only were true. 
My God ! How I would like to be true." The light 
is almost in. Another man, two-thirds back in this 
center section, half arose, but sank back into his 
seat. He could not be persuaded to come forward. 
The light was struggling to get in. To-night the 
Spirit of God is in this meeting. I know He is 
here. When my friends were singing, and Mr. 
Alexander was leading, when the minister was 
praying, I knew that the Spirit was here. I know 
that He is here at this moment and He is pleading. 
Pleading with those of you whose mothers started 



CHASED OUT OF THE WORLD 31 

you right, with those of you whose fathers taught 
you about God, with those of you to whom the min- 
isters have preached for years. The Spirit is here 
and the light is trying to get in. Now, the* text 
again: "He shall be driven from light into dark- 
ness." 

How does Satan do that? Well, he goes to the 
man who says I wish I were free, and says to him : 
" Be careful. You have a greater freedom than 
the people in the Church. If you do this thing at 
all, do it secretly. Don't walk down that aisle. 
Don't make a spectacle of yourself. Tell the min- 
ister you will join the Church, but you won't do it 
in his way." While the tempter does not altogether 
drive out the light in this way, he goes a long way 
toward doing it. He comes to one who was almost 
persuaded to rise this afternoon, and says : " Be 
careful. You will not hold out. If you start and 
fail, people will point their fingers at you." I 
stand here this evening as a minister of the: Gospel 
to say : " No, you cannot hold out." Neither can 
I in my own strength. But I know of One whose 
story is written in this Book. One who puts, round 
about us His everlasting arms and holds ua up. 
When the waves beat against us, when temptations 
beset us, when trials are upon us, then He holds 
us fast. Some of you men are listening and you 
are almost persuaded, but the Devil is telling you 
falsehoods. He is trying to drive you out into the 
darkness. 



32 CHASED OUT OF THE WORLD 

This is not all. Satan may use conscience as a 
whip. Some of you have committed sins that you 
would not dare tell to anyone. Let me say that 
sometimes it is a very dangerous thing to make con- 
fessions to men. Of course, if you have wronged 
another, then you must make the wrong right. If 
you have stolen money, you must make restitution 
and ask forgiveness. But the devil comes to you 
and says : " That old sin of yours ! " Then he 
lashes you. Yes, he fairly lashes your memory. 
And facing the memory of your sin, you are afraid. 
There is a woman in this city of advanced years. 
She would take her stand for Christ but for this. 
I have heard it, not from her lips, but through one 
who is a friend of hers. This aged woman feels 
that if she should take her stand for Christ now, 
and ask for membership in the Church, the Church 
people would turn against her and shun her. I am 
standing here as the representative of the Church 
in this city, and I say that Satan is using this 
thought as a lash to drive this woman from the 
light into the darkness. 

When we were in Springfield, a woman came to 
the front whose face had a strange look. She was 
introduced to me by a gentleman. Later the gen- 
tleman came to me and said : " The name I gave 
you is not her name. She has been a wicked 
woman in this city for years. About five years ago 
she gave up her life of sin, closed her house of 
shame, and for these years has lived a good life to 



CHASED OUT OF THE WORLD 33 

the best of my knowledge. She has tried to undo 
her past sins and the effect of them. She wants 
me to ask you this. Are you prepared to say that 
if she takes her stand for Jesus Christ the churches 
will receive her? She is afraid." So I turned to 
one of the leading ministers of the city, pastor of 
one of the great churches, a very conservative 
church. I told him the story. He sent a message 
to the woman, saying to her : " Come into our 
church. You are as welcome as anybody in the 
city. Our ladies will call upon you, and I will put 
your name on our books, for I believe Christ has 
written it in heaven." Some of you are almost per- 
suaded, but the devil is lifting up your past sins 
and telling you that if you turn to Christ these 
sins will have to be answered for. I say to you 
that if you will turn to Jesus Christ to-night, 
Christ Himself will answer for your sins, and the 
doors of the Church will be thrown wide open to 
you. Don't let Satan drive you from light into 
darkness and chase you out of the warmth of the 
spiritual world. 

I want to close with this. Put your hands over 
your eyes and think. Did you ever see a Christian 
die? How about your mother, and what about 
your father? When William Ewart Gladstone 
died, he had his room full of singing birds, and 
just as he was passing away, he said : " Our 
Father who art in heaven." When William Mc- 
Kinley was dying, and the doctor said to him: 



34 CHASED OUT OF THE WORLD 

" Mr. President, this is the end/' he smiled back 
and said : " If this is the end, sing a hymn," and 
they sang the hymn which we all call McKinley's 
hymn, — " Nearer, My God, to Thee." When the 
great evangelist Dwight L. Moody died, his son 
Will was by his side. They thought Moody had 
gone, but he came back, as it were, from the skies. 
With a radiant face he said to his son : " Will, this 
is wonderful, perfectly wonderful. Earth is reced- 
ing, heaven is advancing." 

Tell me this, did you ever see a godless man die ? 
I asked this question one evening at a meeting, 
and a physician rose in the meeting and said : " I 
have seen two to-day, sir, and God keep me from 
ever seeing another." The text is a true descrip- 
tion. Driven from light into darkness and chased 
out of the world. Oh, to have no hope! No 
Saviour! How dark the world is without Him. 
But the end is not yet here. You are here in life 
and strength. You have the power to decide. God 
is waiting to serve you, men and women. For the 
sake of Jesus Christ, turn. For the sake of your 
people, turn. For the sake of the town in which 
you live, turn. For the sake of these ministers who 
are anxious about you, turn. Husbands and wives 
come forward together. How wonderful that would 
be! Turn to-night! What a memorable meeting 
this would be if a stream of people would push 
their way up to the front, finding their way into 



CHASED OVW OF THE WORLD 35 

the light. Don't let Satan drive you from light 
into darkness and chase you out of the world. 
Christians, turn to your friends by your side and 
say one word, — Cornel 



Ill 

ETERNITY 

MY text this evening is one word. Ever 
since I have been a minister I have 
asked God to help me say two words 
and say them properly. It is said that Whitefield 
used to say " Oh ! " in such a fashion that his hear- 
ers were convicted of sin and some of them would 
cry out for mercy. The first word that I would 
like to say properly is " Lost." I have never yet 
spoken it as it ought to he uttered. I have tried 
my best and failed. If I could say it as the Son 
of God appreciated it when, fainting beneath the 
weight of the Cross, He staggered up Calvary's 
hill, I would not need to preach. To me it is the 
most striking word in the English language. The 
other word I have asked God to help me say is the 
word of my text. It is written in Isaiah 57:15. 
It is the word " Eternity." 

A thousand years from to-night we shall be some- 
where. Ten thousand years from to-night. In- 
crease the multiple and you only increase the truth. 
How can a man speak a word that takes in the ages 
of time and all beyond it. Eternity! The old 
cobbler sat day after day on his little bench, ham- 
mering away at the shoes, and before him was an 

36 



A facsimile of Dr. Chapman's sermon notes, 
showing the outline of the last sermon he preached, 
Dec. 15, 1918, ten days before his death. 



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God holds the Key of all unknown, ■ - ™ ■' ' ■ , 

And I am ghids The very dimness of my sight 

If otlur hands should h&ld the key, Makes me secure ; 

Ol- if lie trust d it to me, For groping in my misty way, 

I might be sad. I feel His hand— I hear Him say 



- f "My help is sure.' 

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ETERNITY 87 

old-fashioned clock. After a while he thought that 
the pendulum of the clock was speaking to him and 
he heard it say as it swung one way, — Eternity, 
and when it went the other way, — Where? And 
the old clock became a preacher and he heard it 
speaking like this : " Eternity, where ? Eternity, 
where ? " The question is a solemn one. Eternity, 
where ? 

The word becomes all the greater when I add to 
it a part of the verse in which the text is found: 
" The high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity." 
What a subject for thought is here. I speak of this 
One and they tell me that He is omnipresent, that 
is, everywhere. I speak again of Him and they 
say that He is omnipotent, that is, all-powerful. 
I talk of Him again and they tell me that He is 
omniscient, that is, all-knowing. We have come in 
contact with great minds. This is the greatest. 
We have been influenced by great personalities. 
This is an infinite personality. When I put these 
words together, the statement of my text is start- 
ling. " One that inhabiteth eternity." He is in- 
finite. He is eternal. He is unchangeable. 
Eternity is the place of His abode. 

Answer me this question: Where will you 
spend eternity? Nobody can answer it but you. 
If I could answer it for you, God knows I would. 
If the mother who wrote this request that I hold 
in my hand and said : " My heart will break if my 
boy is not saved " — if she could answer this ques- 



38 ETERNITY 

tion for her boy, I know she would. God has 
placed the power of choice and determination in 
our hands. God may love, and Jesus may die, and 
the Spirit may plead, but you alone can settle the 
question of eternity. Answer me this: Where will 
you spend eternity ? 

I was preaching in Lincoln, Nebraska, when a 
professor of mathematics stepped up behind me 
and said : " Eternity begins where computation 
ends." I said : " Professor, what does that mean ? " 
" It means this," he said, " that when the man with 
the greatest mind the world has known thinks his 
way out and out and out into the future, and his 
mind fails because it can go no farther, that is the 
beginning of eternity." There is no end. Some- 
times men try to measure the depth of dark caverns, 
but the plummet is not long enough. So they 
measure the depth like this: They take a stop- 
watch in one hand and a piece of rock in the other, 
and note the time when the rock drops from their 
fingers, and listen as it strikes the bottom, noting 
the time it has taken to fall. If you know the 
weight of the rock and the time of falling, you can 
measure with some degree of accuracy the depth of 
the darkness. They tell me that sometimes they 
let a stone fall and there comes back no answer 
from below. To-night I stand on the edge of the 
precipice of time, and I cry up into the light and 
into the darkness : " How long art thou, Eter- 
nity ? " I get the answer from this Book. " The 



ETERNITY 39 

peace of the righteous is everlasting. The doom 
of the wicked is without end." 

Where will you spend it ? I Have no apology to 
make this evening for asking you to think about 
Eternity when there are so many problems in time. 
I have no apology for asking you to think about the 
future when on all sides of us there is the cry of 
the needy, burdens that must be lifted, and tears 
that must be wiped away. I cry out for this rea- 
son. A man is never fitted for time until he is pre- 
pared for eternity. 

One of the members of my household was dying. 
She came to the time of crisis. The doctor took 
her pulse. It was six o'clock. " She will pass the 
crisis at midnight/' he said. I remember how we 
stood and watched her white face, and then the 
clock. The hands seemed never to move. Every 
second was a minute. Every minute longer than 
an hour. Six hours seemed an age. If every day 
were like that, we should still have no conception 
of eternity. When my father slipped away into 
eternity, one of his friends gave me his pocketbook. 
I opened it and found inside a piece of poetry, 
stained on one side as if with tears, and pasted to- 
gether on the other as if worn with much reading. 
Some of the verses I remember after all these 
years : 

" How long sometimes a day appears, 
And weeks, how long are they. 



40 ETERNITY 

Months move as if the years 
Would never pass away. 

But days and weeks are passing by, 

And soon must all be gone. 
For day by day as moments fly, 

Eternity comes on. 

Days, months, and years must have an end, 

Eternity has none. 
'Twill always have as long to spend, 

As when at first begun. ' ' 

Tell me, this evening, where will you spend it? 
Here in this world you have crowded God out of 
your life. You have lost consideration of Him. 
You have divorced your business from Him. You 
have built your home without Him. You are 
training your children without Him. [Yet you 
were made for God. ^Nothing less than God can 
satisfy you. If I had a place on which to stand 
and could hurl into space a million worlds like 
ours, I could never fill space. When I open my 
Bible, I read in the Psalms : " If I ascend up into 
heaven, thou art there; if I make my bed in hell, 
behold, thou art there." Whether I climb up into 
the light or go down into the darkness, in the day- 
time, in the night-time, I find God. Only God can 
fill space and only God can fill my life. 

You are going out into Eternity. God pity you. 
Oh, to have no hope, no Saviour. How long and 
dark the way is. Answer me this question: Do 



ETERNITY 41 

you not think that in these days, especially these 
prosperous days, we are thinking too much of time 
and all too little of Eternity? There is a great 
war filling the world at this moment, and we are a 
neutral nation. Multitudes of homes in the na- 
tions of Europe have marks of mourning upon 
them. I received a letter this morning from a 
friend in Glasgow. He wrote me about one of our 
dear friends. He said : " Lady Maclay is aging 
rapidly." Grief for her lost boy is turning her life 
into winter. When that great day came, June 
29th, and the British soldiers charged on the Dar- 
danelles, her boy went down in a moment. And 
here are we, in this great protected nation, with no 
roar of cannon and no breaking of hearts. We are 
pursuing wealth and pleasure. We are forgetting 
God. I want to ask you this question: Do 
you think that we ought to be called to serious 
thought? I am neither a prophet nor a son of a 
prophet, but I know what will come to America if 
in her pursuit after pleasure and her love of power 
she continues to forget God. Judgment will fall. 
Judgment! I tremble for the country that will 
not hear when God speaks, and for the man who 
builds for time and has no thought of the future. 

Answer me this question: Do you really think 
that men at heart are indifferent ? Let your mind 
run over the list of men you know. Do you think that 
they are indifferent ? I do not. I know men fairly 
well. I know what they sometimes say with their 



42 ETERNITY 

lips. If I were to go through your shops and some 
of the workmen would tell me they were not inter- 
ested in God, I should know they were not speak- 
ing the truth. If I were to go through your col- 
lege halls and some student would say that he was 
not interested in spiritual things, I should know 
that he was speaking falsely. They are not indif- 
ferent. You walk the streets some day and your 
best friend passes you and you never see him. You 
take your seat by the fireside with the newspaper 
that you never read a line of. You were saying as 
you walked the streets, or as you sat by the fire- 
side, or as you tossed restlessly upon your pillow: 
" God ! Eternity ! My soul ! What must I do to 
be saved ? " 

A Christian gentleman went to one of the judges 
in the state of Georgia and said : " Judge, I hear 
that you and your wife are to separate." He was 
highly indignant, and said : " Sir, that is an insult. 
No two people in this world have loved each other 
more devotedly. Separate! Nothing could sepa- 
rate us." His friend said : " But, Judge, your 
wife is a Christian. She is far from well, and the 
doctor tells me that she cannot live long, and you 
are not a Christian. Your wife will go straight to 
God. You are turning your back on Him." The 
old judge stood with tears running down his cheeks 
and lips trembling as he said : " My God ! I never 
thought of that." 

Men are not indifferent. Answer me this: Are 



ETERNITY 43 

you reckless ? A friend of mine crossed the Alps, 
and in crossing lie came to a dangerous pathway, 
not much wider than my two hands. Deep abysses 
yawned on either side. He was a courageous moun- 
tain climber, but he said : " I shall not cross it." 
The guide, throwing away his alpenstock and put- 
ting his hand over his eyes, started on the narrow 
pathway, making his way carefully across, until at 
last he turned and beckoned to my friend. This 
old Book that I hold in my hand says: The path 
of life is a hand's breadth, and life itself is a vapor. 
With no desire to appeal to your emotions, I say 
what every doctor would warrant me in saying: 
There is one heart beat between you and Eternity. 
Yet you hold back as I plead with you, as your old 
mother prays for you, as your wife is in agony 
about you, as the ministers are heartbroken over 
you — and to-morrow, to-morrow may be Eternity. 
Got pity you. I do not understand you. Why do 
you not come to Jesus ? 

Answer me this : Are you satisfied. ? I mean the 
man without God. I had a dear friend in my first 
pastorate in New York. He was the president of 
the village. A great warm-hearted man. I loved 
him devotedly and he returned my affection. The 
devil tripped him and he began to drink. I hate 
the devil for that. It has often seemed to me that 
men like my friend are just the men the devil trips 
up. Not narrow, stingy men, — he has them any- 
way — but big hearts, big men. So my friend went 



44 ETERNITY 

down. When he had no home I took him into 
mine, but he would not stay. He was a great 
friend to me in the days of his prosperity. I was 
pastor of two little churches, and every Sunday I 
went up the Hudson and preached at my second 
church. I had to hire a horse and buggy, and I 
had about as much money as country ministers 
usually have. It cut in on my savings. One day 
I heard a ring at the door, and there stood my 
friend with a big fur coat on. He said : " Hurry, 
hurry." I thought there was some danger near, 
and so ran and put on my coat. He took me by 
the arm and around to the rear of the house, and 
there, hitched to the telegraph pole, was a gray 
horse and cutter. I have seen a good many horses 
in my time, but that one was perfection. 

We got into the cutter and drove to the river 
where the ice was three feet thick. We drove four 
miles up the river, and then he put the reins in my 
hands and said : " Now, you drive." No little boy 
sitting beside his father was ever prouder than I 
was when I took the reins in my hands. When we 
got to the end of the drive, we came to my house 
and stepped out of the cutter. It was at that mo- 
ment that he threw his arm around my shoulder 
and said : " This is yours." Imagine my delight. 
And the devil got that splendid friend of mine. 
One night I saw him all in rags, and I went to 
him and said : " Thank God, you are coming 
back." " Not so fast," he said. " But you are. 



ETERNITY 45 

Mr. D , think about your old mother." She 

was dead then. " Kemember your wife and boy." 
The boy was dead. I had buried him. Nothing 
moved my friend. Finally, I said : " You are not 
satisfied, are you ? " He sprang to his feet and 
held on to the back of the chair, swaying for the 
moment as if he would fall, and said a thing that 
I can hear him saying now. " Satisfied ! What 
ha3 it cost me ? I, the president of the village, and 
homeless. My mother dead of shame, my wife in 
the insane asylum, my boy in his grave. Satis- 
fied!" 

]STo man in all this world is satisfied without 
God. You are not. To-night as I close my appeal 
I say to every man in this building: In God's 
name, why don't you turn ? Why don't you turn ? 
Drifting, drifting, drifting, out into the sea of 
Eternity! And I stand lifting the warning cry: 
Why don't you turn? Tell me why. The very 
atmosphere of this place seems filled with God. It 
may be that God is giving some of you your last 
call. The door is open and it may shut again. 
Turn now. Why will you die? 

You know this old story. I happen to know the 
real truth about it, for a friend of mine was in a 
way associated with it. On the Harlem railroad, 
a man kept the bridge. It was an old-fashioned 
draw-bridge that turned with man power. You re- 
member how he got a message to keep the bridge 
shut because a special was coming. However, just 



46 ETERNITY 

as the order came lie heard the whistle of a little 
tug boat, and saw that he only needed to throw the 
bridge a little to let the tug boat through with her 
flagstaff. After he had let the tug through he 
turned to throw the bridge back and something was 
out of order. He bent to his task, pulling and 
pushing. The sweat came in great drops from his 
brow. An agonizing cry rose from his heart. The 
special came down the track and through the open 
bridge, and scores of people were killed. The 
keeper of the drawbridge was a man under fifty, 
and in the night his hair turned as white as snow. 
My friend went to where they kept him until he 
died, and the man walked up and down in his lit- 
tle padded cell like a caged tiger, by day and by 
night, rarely sleeping. One thing he kept saying 
over and over again : " Oh, if I only had. If I 
only had. If I only had." When he became ex- 
hausted he would fall on his cot, only to rise again 
and say : " Oh, if I only had." 

To-night the door is wide open and people are 
praying and God is waiting. It would be an awful 
thing to go out into Eternity saying : " If I only 
had." To-night I plead with you. I think God 
has sent me to some of you to give you another call. 
These meetings are going on because God in his 
mercy is flinging wide the door once more. Come 
in. Come in. You fathers here, you can never 
expect your boys to go in unless you go yourself. 



ETERNITY 47 

If my mother had not been a sweet, consistent 
Christian, dying at thirty-four, I wonder where I 
should have been. You young men, you boys and 
girls, everybody, come in! 



IV 
SOWING AND KEAPISTG 

I AM bringing to you what I think is a very 
solemn subject. I have no apology for 
speaking on solemn themes, for we are liv- 
ing in a day when many people seem to be turning 
to light and trifling things. We have reached a 
time when men regard God lightly. In fact, many 
seem to have put Him out of their thoughts. It 
used to be, in olden days, that men were afraid 
when they sinned. When they transgressed God's 
law they thought of judgment, and their minds 
went forward to the thought of final punishment. 
!N"ow men sin with impunity. They brush God 
aside. They appear to think that if there be a God 
at all, they can escape His judgment. They are 
clever and rich. They are too important for judg- 
ment. So I bring you to-night a message which I 
hope and pray may help us all to think. It is a 
comparatively easy matter to lead people to Christ 
if they will only think. 

The text is in Galatians 6 : 7 — " Be not deceived. 
God is not mocked. For whatsoever a man soweth, 
that shall he also reap." Do you not see how this 
fits in with my preliminary statement? Stop a 
minute and think about God. He is infinite. He 

48 



SOWING AND REAPING 49 

is eternal. He is omnipotent. And if you resist 
Him to the end, His power must be against you. 
He is omniscient. He knows what we are thinking 
about and what we are doing. What we say and 
do is written, and one day the books will be opened. 
He is omnipresent. He is everywhere. He is here 
to-night as I magnify Jesus Christ. He was in 
your room last night when you sinned against Him. 
He was in the drug store when you slipped in and 
bought drink against the law. He sees you in the 
darkness of the night and in the brightness of the 
noonday. He is always about you. Think of His 
greatness. He holds the winds in the hollow of His 
hands. He speaks and it is done. 

Now come back to the text again — Be not de- 
ceived. God is not mocked. For whatsoever a 
man soweth, that shall he also reap. What does 
this mean ? I will tell you exactly. It means that 
God is not to be ignored. Many of us have actually 
done this in our actions, if not in our thoughts. 
The revelation contained in the Bible counts for 
nothing. The gift of His Son Jesus Christ — you 
are not bothering about it. The love of God — you 
have no use for it. You have turned your back 
upon God. 

But the text says : Be not deceived. God is not 
to be mocked. You may think you can mock Him, 
but some day you will face Him. Oh, it is well 
enough to think that you can get along without God 
when you are well and your family circle is un- 



50 SOWING AND REAPING 

broken and your friends are many. But some day, 
with a broken heart, and broken health, and a 
broken family circle, and friends forsaking you, 
where will you be when you have reached the end ? 

You remember the old story of the stage driver 
who was so profane that the people who travelled 
with him marvelled at his profanity when he led 
such a hazardous life. They wondered that he 
would risk blasphemy. They talked of Christ, only 
to hear His name blasphemed. People who came to 
like him urged him to become a Christian, but he 
resisted all pleas. At last he came to the end. He 
was dying. They thought that he had gone, when 
suddenly they saw one foot moving and they heard 
him say in a whisper : " I am on the down grade 
and I can't find the brake." Some day, some day, 
men and women who have resisted God, spurned 
His love, and trampled it beneath their feet, will 
come to their end and they will not be able to find 
the brake. Be not deceived. God is not mocked. 
For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also 
reap. 

There is a general principle of judgment which 
runs all through God's book. If you start in 
Genesis and go through to Bevelation, you will find 
the thought mentioned many times. But I should 
like to speak particularly of two judgments. Watch 
very carefully, if you please. Revelation 20 : 11 — 
" And I saw a great white throne, and Him that 
sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven 



SOWING AND REAPING 51 

fled away; and there was found no place for them." 
Can you stand a judgment like that ? If there has 
been a record made of your life to the present time, 
all your profanity, your intemperance, your im- 
purity, — answer me, could you stand that ? It goes 
on to say, " and the books were opened." Down 
South the colored people have a song that they al- 
ways sing in the minor key. It runs like this: 
" He sees all we do. He hears all we say. My 
God's a writing all the time." We, too, are writ- 
ing our own record. I am writing, and so are you. 
That sin of yours last night that your mother does 
not know about, — it is written down. That sin 
that your wife does not know about, — it has made 
its record. That sin you committed in Pittsburgh, 
in London, that sin of yours in Chicago, that sin 
committed in New York. I was saying this in 
Scotland, and Mr. Alexander said I went far afield 
to say, " that sin committed in New York," for the 
people in Scotland had never seen New York. At 
the close of the service three men came forward, 
and one of them said : " You have uncovered a sin 
I have tried to hide for years. I went to New 
York for five days, and was so far away from home 
that I thought I might give way. I sinned, and I 
have covered it over all my life. I thought no one 
would know it." The surest thing about sin is that 
it makes its mark. The books, God's books and 
your book, shall be opened. Hear the text again — ■ 



52 SOWING AND REAPING 

Be not deceived. God is not mocked, for whatso- 
ever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. 

Not a very great while ago, on Long Island, not 
many miles from my home, a yonng woman turned 
away from her husband. He was a man of wealth 
and position. No one ever knew why she left him. 
She went away with another man very much her 
social inferior. Her husband's heart was broken. 
He did everything he could. He wrote and sent 
messages to her. He sent his father after her. She 
would not return. There was only one thing to 
do to protect his name and household, because her 
sin was so very great, and that was to divorce her. 
He was forced to do it. She married her com- 
panion in sin and all seemed to go well, but one 
day the New York papers contained an announce- 
ment that she and her companion were dead. They 
had died in a New York hotel together. She left 
this letter : " My friends, Fred and I have been 
young and heedless and cynical, living in this great 
wicked city of New York. We have often laughed 
at what the preachers say. We have often sneered 
at the words : ' Whatsoever a man soweth that shall 
he also reap,' and ' The wages of sin is death/ 
People say it is old fogyism. Fred and I know 
better. We are reaping the harvest and we cannot 
stand it." 

It seems to me as I stand here this evening, that 
I am preaching to some person who needs my mes- 
sage. It may be that God has sent you here to 



SOWING AND REAPING 53 

listen to what I am saying. The time has come 
when someone mnst speak for God to you and say: 
Be not deceived. God is not mocked. If yon sow 
yon will reap. Of course, if you have accepted 
Jesus Christ as your Saviour, you have nothing to 
do with the " great white throne of judgment." I 
was a Christian for years before I knew this. I 
had thought that I should have to stand face to 
face with God and hear His " depart " or " wel- 
come," but there is nothing like this in the Bible. 
If I have accepted Jesus Christ as my personal 
Saviour, I have already appeared in judgment in 
his person, and I shall never stand in judgment 
again. But unless I take Him, unless I yield to 
Him, and in sincere and honest repentance turn 
from sin, then judgment is awaiting me. 

So many young men seem to think that they can 
sow their wild oats with impunity. I have heard 
men say that wild oats must be sown, but hear me 
when I say, if you sow your wild oats you will reap 
the same harvest, the same harvest ! Just so surely 
as God lives and you do not repent, hear me, one 
day the reaping time will come. I am greatly con- 
cerned about men who do not come to Christ. I 
have come to feel in these days as if I were preach- 
ing to my own people. I have come to know you 
well. I have been in intimate touch with many 
of the students. I have lost all thought of a pro- 
miscuous audience. It seems to me as if I were 
standing here pleading for my own. Hear me then, 



54 SOWING AND REAPING 

my friends, as I say : Be not deceived. God is not 
mocked. For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall 
he also reap. It is written plainly in God's Word. 
It is proved by experience. We shall reap if we 
sow. Sow a thought and you reap an act. Sow 
an act and you reap a habit. Sow a habit and you 
reap a character. Sow a character and you reap a 
destiny. It is written in God's Word that we shall 
reap what we sow. 

A well-dressed man came to me in one of the 
meetings in Ohio and slipped a letter into my hand. 
It said : " My name is so and so. My telephone 
number is so and so. You may call me if you 
wish. I lived a wicked life before my marriage. 
I was false to everything that stood for manhood. 
I thought that I was too clever to be trapped. I 
married. My wife was beautiful. There came to 
our home a little child. I thought sunshine had 
come at last. I loved the child devotedly. I used 
to take her in my arms and fondle her, covering 
her face with my kisses. One day I noticed some- 
thing wrong with the child and I took her to a great 
specialist. He came to my home and called a con- 
ference of other doctors. They went over my little 
baby, studying every part of her body. They came 
to my library, for I am a man of position and 
means, and they said : i Sir, what was your life 
before marriage ? ' My God ! I had to tell them 
that my life before marriage was in open rebellion 
of God's laws. Then the doctor led me over to the 



SOWING AND REAPING 55 

side of the room and put his hand on my shoulder, 
and said : ' Sir, this is your harvest. Your baby 
will go through life, if she lives, with a twisted 
spine and shut eyes.' " — Be not deceived. God is 
not mocked. For whatsoever a man soweth, that 
shall he also reap. 

When we were going around the world we 
stopped one day at Thursday Island, and there I 
heard a sorrowful tale. There is much leprosy on 
the other side of the world, especially in the tropics. 
One day, not far from Thursday Island, it was 
found that a little boy and girl belonging to a good 
home were lepers. The laws are very strict, and 
while the wealth of the father of the children was 
great, it was decided that the family should live 
alone on another island. The mother stole away 
with the children and was lost in Sidney for two 
years, until, strange to say, her children were ad- 
mitted to the schools. Then the law found them 
again and they were taken back to the vicinity of 
Thursday Island, and the law began its operation. 
The children were separated from the family and 
sent to the leper island. But how did they become 
lepers? How? The mother, with her love of so- 
cial position, thought the cares of motherhood too 
heavy, so she had a South Sea Island woman to 
care for her children, and she was leprous. This 
was the story, and when I heard it and saw what 
a harvest had come to that woman for the seeds 
she had sown, I could not withhold my tears. It 



56 SOWING AND REAPING 

is hard to sin when sin hurts yourself and tosses 
you on your bed so that you cannot sleep, and you 
say: Will the morning never come? But it is 
harder still to sin and to hurt one's wife and chil- 
dren, or other dear ones. Be not deceived. God is 
not mocked. For whatsoever a man soweth, that 
shall he also reap. 

I have come to the close of my appeal. I do not 
need to preach longer. In the light of my text to- 
night, I say to all of you that we reap the harvest 
of what we have sown. The harvest may be an im- 
paired will, a ruined character, injury and sorrow 
to others. Hear me again, — be not deceived. God 
is not mocked. For whatsoever a man soweth, that 
shall he also reap. My heart grieves for any sin- 
ner who stays away from the Saviour. I have a 
mind to give my place on the platform to someone 
else, so that I might go back through the building 
to this one and that one, and say : Turn ye ! Turn 
ye ! For why will you die ? I have a mind to lay 
hold upon you and compel you to come, for there 
is only one way in all this world to escape the law 
of which I am speaking. That way is this: Be- 
lieve on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be 
saved. If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the 
Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thy heart that God 
hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be 
saved. Can I say any more than this ? God help 
you! Some of you are sitting there and saying to 
yourselves : "I am too timid." Come down when 



SOWING AND REAPING 57 

the crowd rises. Some of you are saying : " I can 
settle it here." It would be worth everything for 
you to come out in the open and walk down this 
aisle. Come forward and let me take your hand, 
and let me hear you say : " God being my helper, 
I am going to turn to Christ to-night." Now is 
the time. 



m 

"WHERE IS ABEL THY BROTHER?" 

YOU will find my text in Genesis 4:9 — 
"Where is Abel thy brother?" When 
the first man had sinned and was seek- 
ing to get away from God, God went seeking him 
and saying: Where art thou? The first question 
put by God to man had to do with his personal re- 
lationship to God. The second question has to do 
with man's relation to his brother. I bring you this 
second question: Where is Abel thy brother? 

Stop for a moment and think. Do you know 
where your brother is ? Whether the man by your 
side is a Christian or not, he is your brother. Can 
you answer the text? Daniel Webster once said 
that the greatest question a man has to face is his 
individual responsibility to God. I know what the 
second greatest question is. It is the question of 
our relation to those about us. Cain and Abel met 
in the field, and in a fit of anger Cain slew his 
brother. God came seeking the brother, and when 
he put to Cain the question of the text, he fixed a 
mark upon Cain which he bore to his death. God 
always puts a mark upon us when we sin. Some- 
times it is in the look of the eye. Sometimes it is 
in the sound of the voice, or in the way we stand. 

58 



"WHERE IS ABEL THY BROTHER?" 59 

Often there is a nervous restlessness in sin. The 
sad thing to me is that we transmit that mark from 
generation to generation. You sin to-day and fifty 
years from to-day someone may rise up to curse 
you. Sin is awful. 

I have an idea that there is also a mark for faith- 
lessness. You have lived with your husband for 
years, with your boy from his birth, with your Sun- 
day School class for years, with your associate in 
business for years, and never a word about Jesus. 
In one of our meetings I saw a woman sobbing 
violently. I took my place by her side, and all I 
could get her to say was : " I never warned him." 
Finally, to another minister she said : " I was be- 
trothed to a gentleman. I loved him dearly. I had 
been a member of the church since childhood. I 
knew he was not saved. Last week he died. I 
never warned him." 

I believe there is a great opportunity here for a 
sweeping revival. Hearts are open. Men and 
women are awaiting approach. But I know this 
also, that hundreds of people in this city will never 
be saved unless you approach them first. I wish I 
could persuade ministers to double their efforts, to 
increase their visits, to give up even their pulpit 
preparation and go from house to house, and street 
to street, saying: I beseech you be reconciled to 
God. I wish I could persuade every Christian 
Sunday School scholar in this building to resolve, 
before leaving this service, to speak to someone 



60 "WHERE IS ABEL THY BROTHER?" 

about Jesus. To-morrow night we would see them 
pressing their way into the Kingdom like doves to 
their windows. 

Often there is only a word needed. Not a great 
while ago a friend of mine told me of a young fel- 
low entering the ministry. My friend asked him 
how he gave himself to Christ and to the ministry. 
His answer was this : " I was a caddy on a golf 
course. Monday morning, the Hon. Hugh Hanna, 
of Indianapolis, came to play. I was his caddy. 
He turned to me and said : ' I suppose you are 
much rested this morning/ ( ISTo, sir/ I said, ' I 
am very tired.' ' How is that,' he said. ' Because 
I caddied all day yesterday.' Then the Christian 
gentleman said to me : ' My son, you should not 
do that. You should keep God's day holy. Are 
you a Christian ? ' ' Eo, sir,' I answered, and the 
great man said : ( Well, my son, I wish I could 
help you to be a Christian. There is nothing in 
this world like it.' " Hugh Hanna forgot the con- 
versation, but the boy never did. Soon he went to 
school. He worked his way through the university. 
He started on his way to the ministry. One word 
did it. I wish I could help you to understand, this 
evening, what personal influence is, how, when a 
life is yielded to God and the Spirit of God fills 
the life, God may use even a trivial thing to win 
a soul. 

When we were in Scotland I learned an interest- 
ing fact of history, which, of course, is familiar to 



"WHERE IS ABEL THY BROTHER?" 61 

many. Two hundred and fifty years ago an ordi- 
nary peddler sold a book to a comparatively un- 
known man. That man was Richard Baxter. He 
read the book and wrote " The Saints' Everlasting 
Rest." This book fell into the hands of a man 
named Philip Doddridge. He read it and wrote 
" The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul." 
This book in turn fell into the hands of Wilber- 
force. He read it and wrote " A Practical View 
of Christianity." This book fell into the hands of 
Leigh Richmond, who wrote the " Dairyman's 
Daughter." This book fell into the hands of 
Thomas Chalmers, who became Scotland's greatest 
preacher. He was not a Christian, he says, at the 
time he read the book, although he was already 
preaching the gospel. His soul was fired, and he 
dropped on his knees in his study in complete sur- 
render. To-day they refer to him as the greatest 
theologian and preacher of all Scotland's great his- 
tory. A peddler on one hand, Thomas Chalmers 
on the other. Oh, if I could help you all to feel the 
power of influence. 

I believe we have come to a place in these meet- 
ings where as believing men and women we must 
throw ourselves at the feet of the Master. Where 
is Abel thy brother? I think I know what the 
trouble in the Church is. I know that the churches 
do not mean to be inconsistent. Church members 
do not mean to turn away from the service of the 
Master. I resent the criticism which some hurl 



62 "WHERE IS ABEL THY BROTHER?" 

against the Church. Yet I know the weakness of 
the Church. 

When we were in England, I read in one of the 
London papers how two men, standing on a dock 
in one of the harbours, were pushed into the water. 
They were strong swimmers, but the tide was so 
swift that they were borne away from the dock. It 
seemed as if they would surely lose their lives. 
The harbour authorities were notified, but they 
said: This is not our business. Word was sent to 
the district authorities, but they replied: This is 
not our work. At last, the harbour people notified 
the Superintendent of Police, but there had been 
no drowning recently, and when they went for their 
appliances they were out of order. Finally, a man 
threw himself into the sea, battled his way out to 
where the men had last been seen, and found that 
they were gone. 

This is an exaggerated picture of the Church. 
It would be an unfair criticism to say that the 
Church is like this, but I do know that many people 
in the Church are excusing themselves. They think 
that their minister should do all the personal work, 
or they think that the Sunday School teachers 
should make a specialty of winning souls. They 
can understand how, when I stand here night after 
night, I should preach with tears and cry out until 
I can plead no longer for lack of physical energy, 
but they do not understand that they are expected 
to do something themselves. God has a plan of 



"WHERE IS ABEL THY BROTHER?" 63 

economy of his own. He means that every Chris- 
tian, every Church member, every Sunday School 
teacher, every scholar, should be on the lookout for 
souls. Where is Abel thy brother? If all of you 
would help, a thousand people would be brought 
to Christ this week. Your leading citizens would 
come down these aisles. Your representative 
women would find their way to the front. Scores 
of young men and women would push their way 
forward. 

In an Indiana city, a gentleman who is a mem- 
ber of Congress said that God had spoken to him 
very clearly. He went home and tossed on his bed 
all night without sleeping. He rose in the morning 
at five o'clock, made his way to the house of his 
law partner, and rang the bell. When the servant 
had dressed himself and opened the door, he found 
this distinguished man waiting. " I must see Mr. 
so and so," said the visitor. In ten minutes the 
gentleman of the house was in the library, think- 
ing something was wrong. The member of Con- 
gress put his arm affectionately around his friend's 
shoulder and said : " Tom, you and I have loved 
each other for years. We were boys together in 
the country school. We carved our names together 
on the wooden desks. We have been law partners 
for years. I love you. I am a leader in the 
Church, but I have never spoken to you about your 
soul. Oh, Tom ! " ]STo other word was spoken. A 
little later I saw that friend walk down the aisle 



64 "WHERE IS ABEL THY BROTHER?" 

of a crowded church and say: "I will accept 
Christ as my Saviour." 

Somebody must speak the word. Prayers must 
be sobbed out. Letters must be written. Personal 
visits must be made. I know how it was when I 
was a student in the university. When the days 
of revival were on, the Christian students would 
go from room to room, speaking to men that were 
careless. When work like that is being done, souls 
begin to flock into the Kingdom like doves to the 
windows. There is not a young man in the college 
yonder but would be moved if the right man went 
to him saying, with tears in his eyes : " I am con- 
cerned for you." Hear me. Where is Abel thy 
brother ? 

Suppose you had a boy who had been cured of 
a dangerous disease. You were fortunate in find- 
ing a doctor who understood the case. And sup- 
pose you knew of another man whose boy was 
dying with the same disease, and there was no 
doctor to cure him. Would you sit with your arms 
folded reading the newspaper, or looking into the 
fire? You would not stand on ceremony. You 
would not wait for an invitation. You would go 
to this man and say : " My boy was sick unto 
death. I want to introduce you to his doctor." 

I was walking along the streets of London. The 
streets were crowded with soldiers. As I came to 
a little narrow alleyway I saw that the crowd was 
surging there, and I heard a voice say : " Won't 



"WHERE IS ABEL THY BROTHER?" 65 

somebody help rue ? " I looked around, and there 
was a blind man. He could walk in the alleyway, 
but be was afraid of the crowd. Do you suppose 
that I could turn my back on a man in that plight ? 
Hundreds of us in that crowd felt like stopping to 
heed his cry. Yet in this city of culture and re- 
finement, and even of boasted education, there are 
people who are blind. Shall we not help them to 
see? Where is Abel thy brother? 

There is a man in New York of great wealth. 
He has a country home on Long Island Sound on 
an island just out from the mainland. His family 
so enjoy the country home that they stay late into 
the autumn. One day this man and his son left 
"New York for the country place. They were ac- 
customed to go across from the mainland in a 
launch, but for some reason the launch was out of 
order, so they took a rowboat and started across. 
A sudden storm came up and the boat was capsized. 
The father could swim, but the boy could not. 
Both of them went down. The father came to the 
surface and threw his arm around his boy, shout- 
ing for help. A man on the shore heard the cry, 
but there was no boat at hand. The boy went down 
again, and again the father caught him as he came 
up, battling all the while with the waves. Losing 
hold with his hand, he caught the boy with his 
teeth, but the coat gave way. Shouting for help, 
he made one more clutch at the boy and missed 
him. It was the last he ever saw of him. I under- 



66 "WHERE IS ABEL THY BROTHER?" 

stand that father's frenzied effort. If my boy were 
in physical danger I should be frantic. But if I 
should get a telegram saying that he was facing 
death and had no Saviour, I should be in an agony. 
I cannot understand how men are so greatly con- 
cerned about the physical danger of their loved 
ones and are indifferent to their spiritual danger. 

Where is Abel thy brother? Tell me. I know 
what you are saying. You are saying just what 
an old man said this afternoon. One of our work- 
ers talked to him, and the old man, with tears in 
his eyes, kept saying: "Sometime, sometime, 
sometime." And you, too, are saying — sometime. 
You are going to speak to your boy to-morrow 
morning. At breakfast the bell rings and your boy 
is not present. You wait and he does not come. 
You listen for his footsteps and cannot hear them. 
Presently the mother comes, and pushes open the 
door. You can see anxiety in her face. Your boy 
is sick unto death. When you meet God, the ques- 
tion will be asked : Where is your son ? Why did 
you never invite him? Why did you never call 
him? Why did you never tell him about Christ 
and eternal life, and the judgment ? Some day he 
will face the judgment, and you also will face it. 

I must close my message, but I must not leave 
this platform to-night with the impression that all 
the responsibility is upon me and my brethren in 
the ministry, or upon the Christian people of this 
city. I turn to you, my friend, and I say: How 



"WHERE IS ABEL THY BROTHER?" 67 

about yourself ? You are not a Christian, and like 
the old man to-day, you are saying: Sometime, 
sometime. In Dundee, Scotland, a wild and reck- 
less boy broke his mother's heart. He went from 
one depth of sin and shame to another, and then 
fled from home. Blindly drunk, he made his way 
to a ship, and when he awoke in the morning, he 
was at sea on the way to Australia. They would 
not let him off. After a while he reached the gold 
fields. There he had common miner's luck, until 
one day he struck a pocket of gold. One nugget 
after another came up out of that pocket. In the 
morning he went out poor, and by high noon he 
stood with gold heaped about his feet. Of whom 
do you think he thought first, standing there with 
the gold at his feet ? " Mother," he said, " I will 
go back to old Dundee and buy you the finest house 
in the city. I will get you the best car that runs." 
Soon he was on the sea, going back to Dundee. Ar- 
rived in the old town, he was soon standing in front 
of the little house. There was no light in the win- 
dow, no smoke coming out of the chimney. When 
he rapped at the door, there was no answer. Then 
he went to a neighbour's house. They said to him : 
" Jack, stay with us until morning and we will tell 
you." When morning came they took him out to 
the churchyard. The place is not far from Mr. 
Carnegie's castle. Past this grave and that they 
went, until at length they came to a new grave. It 
was his mother's grave. On the front board he 



68 "WHERE IS ABEL THY BROTHER?" 

read his mother's name, and the date of her death. 
He got down on his knees and buried his face in 
his hands and sobbed as only a big man ean sob. 
" Mother, mother," he cried, " I did love you. I 
did love you." The one who stood by his side later 
became his wife. ; Very gently she said to him: 
" Jack, you told her too late." Yes, it was too late. 
Some day you expect to be saved. You want to 
be with your family, with your mother, in the 
skies. You would like to see your sweet child 
again who has gone on before. 

" And if you still this call refuse, 
And all His wondrous love abuse; 
Soon will He sadly from you turn, 
Your bitter cry for pardon spurn. 
Too late, too late, will be the cry, 
Jesus of Nazareth has passed by." 

I have finished my word to you to-night. I stand 
just a moment longer and say : " Where is Abel 
thy brother ? Where is he, and where are you ? " 



VI 

THE ACCEPTED TIME 

MY text is familiar — II Corinthians 6 : 2 
— " Behold, now is the accepted time ; 
behold, now is the day of salvation." 
This text is generally made use of in appeals to 
those who are not Christians, but if you will read 
the verses preceding and following the text, you 
will see that it is an appeal as well to those who 
are already Christians. Let me say in the begin- 
ning that salvation has been provided by the sacri- 
fice of Jesus Christ. This is an old-fashioned 
statement to make, but I am an old-fashioned 
preacher. It is the sacrificial death of Christ that 
brings salvation to man. Salvation is a very broad 
and inclusive word. It means for one thing that 
we are justified. If you realized the meaning of 
this word justification, you would shout. It means 
to stand before God as if you had never sinned. It 
means to have every sin put away. It means to 
stand in God's sight with your life as clean and 
white as the pages of this Book. Also it means 
redemption. I want you to catch a vision of the 
marvelous thing that is yours when you accept 
Jesus Christ. " We are redeemed, not with cor- 
ruptible things, such as silver and gold, but with 
the precious blood of Christ." 



1° 



THE ACCEPTED TIME 



I was standing the other day in Tiffany's, in 
New York, and I overheard a woman asking to see 
some pearls. The salesman placed on the counter 
some wonderful pearls. I heard him say that the 
price was $17,000. When I looked at them, they 
seemed overwhelmingly splendid. This sum repre- 
sented Tiffany's estimate of the value of the pearls. 
You may say that your life is not worth very much, 
but I tell you that you are redeemed by the 
precious blood of Christ. I tell you that in the 
sight of God you are worth more than all the gold 
in the hills, all the diamonds in the fields. Salva- 
tion! It is a wonderful word. It means forgive- 
ness. I wonder if we truly appreciate what divine 
forgiveness is. Suppose you do me an injury, and 
I say that I will forgive it. I mean it, too. But 
you meet me five years hence, and you find me still 
thinking about the injury. I have forgiven, but 
I have not forgotten. One of the most wonderful 
things written in God's Book — it makes my heart 
burn and brings tears to my eyes when I read it — 
is that when God forgives, he forgets. He puts 
my sins behind His back, casts them into the 
depths of the sea, hurls them as far as the east is 
from the west. I am a quiet man, not much given 
to shouting. I like very well what one of the pa- 
pers said the other day, that when I wanted to 
make a special emphasis, I lowered my voice in- 
stead of raising it. But it seems to me that I want 
to shout to-night as I am telling you about salva- 



THE ACCEPTED TIME )H~ 

tion. Salvation means redemption. It means 
justification. It means divine forgiveness and for- 
getfulness of sin. When I read my text in the 
light of this statement, it grows wonderful. Be- 
hold, now is the day of salvation. 

What does the text really mean ? It means that 
now is the day to present salvation to others. Now 
is the day to tell them about it. To-day is the day 
to announce it to your children, to tell it to your 
classmates. !Now is the day when a business man 
should speak to his employees and tell them about 
salvation. " Behold, now is the accepted time ; be- 
hold, now is the day of salvation." 

If you study God's ways, you will notice that 
He is always planning, by His providential ar- 
rangements, to bring within the reach of our in- 
fluence people whom we may turn to Christ. Keep 
your eyes open and see. Keep your ears unstopped 
and hear. You will meet a man in the street, you 
will travel with a man on the train, and God has 
sent him to you. Someone will visit in your home, 
or be in your employ. God is bringing him within 
your reach. "Behold, now is the accepted time; 
behold, now is the day of salvation." 

Do you remember when the Government sent 
astronomers to Africa to witness the transit of 
Venus ? These men were especially chosen and 
commissioned to watch for the wonderful spectacle 
in the heavens. There will be a critical moment, 
and they must watch. What if they had been list- 



72 THE ACCEPTED TIME 

less and careless? What if one of them had been 
reading a book? What if another of them had 
been star-gazing without an instrument? Every- 
one must have his eye at the glass watching for the 
moment. Who knows but that the critical moment 
is here to win hundreds of people to Christ. I 
have been a member of a certain club in !STew York 
for years. One Sunday I went there for dinner. 
I had been preaching in one of the churches. One 
of the strong business men of the city came in, and 
when we met I asked him where he had been. 
" I have been to church/' he replied. I said, 
" Where ? " and he told me. One of the best 
known men in the country was the minister. I 
noticed that the man was deeply impressed, and I 
said to him : " You must have liked the sermon." 
His lips trembled and I saw tears on his cheek, al- 
though he is not an emotional man. Then he said : 
" When Dr. B. closed his sermon, if he had asked, 
is there a man here who will come down and accept 
Christ, I would have risen in the audience and 
walked down the length of the church, and taken 
my stand for Christ. My heart went like a trip- 
hammer. But the invitation was not given." 
There are critical moments in the history of souls, 
and we must be watching for these moments. 
" Behold, now is the day of salvation." 

If I knew how you could become rich and pros- 
perous, I would certainly tell you about it. It is 
a strange thing that when we know how men may 



THE ACGEPTED TIME 73 

become Christians, and have their sins forgiven, 
our lips are so often sealed. It is easy to talk about 
almost everything under the sun, but when we 
begin to talk about Christ, a strange expression 
comes into our faces and our voices take on a 
forced tone. I am preaching to myself about this, 
as well as to my brother ministers and to all the 
Christians. Why do we not talk naturally and 
urgently about Christ? 

I plead with you all to join hands with me and 
unite your faith with mine. Let us go out and 
talk to men urgently, and tell them that "now is 
the accepted time." I never mean to preach un- 
kindly to anyone. I would not preach unkindly to 
you if you were a sinner. I do not expect to 
preach with fists clenched. I remember a lesson 
that I learned when I was preaching before the 
professors in the theological seminary. The text 
of my sermon was : " What lack I yet ? " No 
doubt I was very severe. When I had finished, one 
of the old professors, a very kind man, said gently 
to me : " Brother Chapman, you will never win 
your way in the ministry like that. Don't preach 
that way. Double up your fists at men and they 
will double up their fists at you." I mean to speak 
kindly; nevertheless, I shall speak directly and 
sharply. I may say some things that will make 
you cringe. I shall say some things that will un- 
cover hidden sins, but I promise you this, that I 



74 THE ACCEPTED TIME 

shall say them with a warm heart and sometimes 
with a sob. 

May I pause to say to the ministers that we are 
apt to forget that our principal business is winning 
souls. We think that we must build up the saints. 
Ministers must be on the watch for the critical 
moment: for the accepted time in the history of 
souls. Alas, for any minister who is not watching 
thus. When we were in Scotland, I had a little 
time at my disposal, and I used it in reading the 
lives of Scotch ministers of different denomina- 
tions. I read the life of Thomas Chalmers. One 
day Chalmers went to visit a man past eighty. He 
knew that he was not a Christian. He sat and 
talked with him a long time with never a word 
about his soul. In the night there came to Dr. 
Chalmers a hurried message telling him that the 
man was dead. He hurried away to the home. 
This is what he says : " I made my way to the 
house and walked up and down the room with tears. 
I asked the man's family to forgive me, and then 
I went out and walked in the woods until morning 
came. Oh, my God, if I had only been true." 

A man came into my study in Albany and said 
to me : " Will you come and talk to a young man 
who is dying ? " On the way the man said to me : 
" The young man is dying of consumption, and you 
must not speak to him about death." I sat by his 
bed and talked to him for some time. We talked 
about music, in which he was interested. We dis- 



THE ACCEPTED TIME 75 

cussed politics. Then the visit ended, and I said 
good-bye. I can feel his cold hand in mine even 
to this moment. As I walked to the door and 
looked back, I caught a glimpse of his white face 
and deep-set eyes. They searched me through and 
through. I went home, but early the next morning 
I went back to the sick man's house. I was just 
entering his bedroom when someone said to me: 
" He died yesterday, an hour after you were here." 
I would give anything if I had spoken to him. I 
do not know whether he died in the faith or not. 
" Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salva- 
tion." Anyone of us ministers would feel compli- 
mented if men should say: He is like Paul. 
Would not that be wonderful ? I would like to re- 
semble Paul in this. It is said that he went from 
house to house saying to men and women : " I be- 
seech you to be reconciled to God." It is said that 
when he wrote he stained his manuscript with his 
tears. If some of us should begin to do that and 
should go from house to house, and from man to 
man, saying: "Behold, now is the accepted time," 
how long do you think it would be before this city 
would be stirred ? It is a pity that parents forget 
that this is the " day of salvation " for their chil- 
dren. There are men and women here who would 
do anything for their children. There is not any- 
thing that you would not give them, education, 
books, travel. But let me ask you, how many of 
you parents here to-night have spoken to your chil- 



76 THE ACCEPTED TIME 

dren about Jesus Christ? You say the minister 
will win them, or the Sunday School teacher, or 
the evangelist. I would be ashamed if I thought 
anybody in this world had more influence with my 
children than I. It is a dreadful thing to rear 
children and never try to win them to Jesus Christ. 
There trudged along a Scotch highway years ago 
a little, old-fashioned mother. By her side was her 
boy. The boy was going out into the world. At 
last the mother stopped. She could go no farther. 
" Robert," she said, " promise me something ? " 
" What ? " asked the boy. " Promise me some- 
thing ? " said the mother again. The boy was as 
Scotch as his mother, and he said : " You will have 
to tell me before I will promise." She said : "Robert, 
it is something you can easily do. Promise your 
mother ? " He looked into her face and said : 
" Very well, mother, I will do anything you wish." 
She clasped her hands behind his head and pulled 
his face down close to hers, and said : " Robert, 
you are going out into a wicked world. Begin 
every day with God. Close every day with God." 
Then she kissed him, and Robert Moffatt says that 
that kiss made him a missionary. And Joseph 
Parker says that when Robert Moffatt was added 
to the Kingdom of God, a whole continent was 
added with him. There are critical times in the 
history of souls. " Now is the accepted time; now 
is the day of salvation." If you are a father, go 
home this evening and speak to your boy. If your 



THE ACCEPTED TIME 77 

own life has been inconsistent, tell your boy so. 
You will win him to Christ. The influence of a 
father upon a boy is wonderful. Fathers and 
mothers, why don't you win your children to 
Christ? You Christian workers, how you let op- 
portunity slip! An opportunity missed is a 
tragedy in one's life. 

When we were in Belfast, Ireland, I said in one 
of the afternoon meetings — everybody who was con- 
verted in '57 and '59 stand up. A great many 
white-haired people arose. Afterwards a man 
came to the inquiry room and rose for prayer. He 
said: "I was converted in '57, and I had two 
years of great joy in the Christian life. One night 
God came to me and said : Go and speak to such a 
one, twelve miles away. I did not go. He called 
again, and I did not go. In a day or so, a letter 
came to me telling me that the man was dead. He 
died unsaved." There was an agonizing expres- 
sion in the man's face as he told his story. It was 
a picture of sadness that no artist could have 
painted. With trembling lips, he said : " All these 
years since that time, I have had a great sorrow in 
my soul." I saw him drop on his knees and heard 
him sob like a little child. " Now is the accepted 
time." 

In Peoria, 111., a man said to Mr. Wm. Eey- 
nolds : " Mr. Reynolds, why have you not asked 
me to be a Christian ? Did you know I was not a 
Christian?" Mr. Reynolds replied: "Yes, I 



7S THE ACCEPTED TIME 

knew you were not a Christian." " Well," said the 
man, " did you care ! " " Yes. I have cared, all 
the time I have known you." " Why, then, did 
you not ask me," said the man. " Well," said Mr. 
Eeynolds, " if you will come to my omce now, I 
will spend the rest of the day with you." Then 
the man smiled and said: "I was converted yes- 
terday.*' He told the story of how he was con- 
verted. He entered a train in Chicago, and took 
the only unoccupied seat in the car. Just as the 
train was pulling out, a burly sort of a man entered 
and sat alongside him. He dropped his traveling 
bag, and took out a book and began to read. It 
was the Bible. After a while he closed the Bible 
and looked out of the window, and said : " What 
a wonderful day." The other man replied, " Very 
wonderful." Then the big man saw the harvests 
in the fields, and said to his companion : " You 
have fine harvests out here."' " Yes.'" was the 
reply, " very wonderful." Then he added : " Is 
not God good to give such harvests as these ! " 
There was no reply. " Why. are not you a Chris- 
tian ? " said the big man. " Xo, sir," was the 
reply. u Why. how could you not be a Christian ( 
Bead this." And with this he opened his Bible 
and began to read him some verses. Presently he 
said to him : " Why don't you bow your head on 
the back of the seat in front, and let me pray with 
you i " Telling his story, the man said : " Before 
I knew it mv head was bowed and his arm was 



THE ACCEPTED TIME 79 

around me. When I lifted my head, I was a saved 
man. The train stopped at a station, and the man 
started out. He was almost gone, and I remem- 
bered that I did not know his name. I rushed to 
the car door, and put my hands to my lips and 
shouted — ( What is your name ? ? He looked over 
his shoulder and said one word — ' Moody. ' " 

It is said of Mr. Moody that he never let a day 
go by without speaking to somebody about Christ. 
He went to bed one night and could not sleep. 
Twenty minutes after eleven, and still no sleep. A 
quarter to twelve, and he was still awake. He had 
not kept his promise. He arose and dressed him- 
self, and rushed out of the house. As he turned 
the corner he ran into a man who said something 
that I cannot repeat in public. Mr. Moody shouted 
out to him : " Are you a Christian ? " The man 
said : " None of your business." Mr. Moody said : 
" Why, yes, it is my business." The man squared 
himself up and said : " If it is your business, then 
I know your name. Your name is D. L. Moody." 
It was a marvellous thing that a man could be so 
true to Christ, so loyal to his Master, that a man 
who met him in the dark knew who he was when 
he spoke about the Saviour. 

I do not know whether I shall ever preach again. 
I must speak this text to you, with the greatest 
emphasis of which I am capable. " Behold, now 
is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of 
salvation." Why don't you take Him? Tell me, 






80 THE ACCEPTED TIME 

friends, why don't you take Him ? Why don't you 
accept my Saviour? An old woman walked down 
the steps of a Boston police station and caught her 
heel and fell. They put her in the patrol wagon 
and took her to the hospital. A doctor, bending 
over her, said : " She will not live." She heard 
him say it, and spoke : " In the little package I 
brought to the hospital you will find a picture. It 
is a picture of my boy. He ran away from home 
in Colorado, and I sold my property and have 
searched for him everywhere. I have been going 
to police stations and hospitals, but I have not 
found him. I want to leave this picture with you. 
If you should see my precious boy, tell him that 
there were two in this world who never gave him 
up." The doctor bent over her and said : " J^urse, 
she is going." Then the nurse stooped down and 
said : " Mother, tell me the names of the two so that 
I may tell him." She lifted her face, lighted al- 
ready with the light of heaven, and said in a whis- 
per : " Tell him that God and his mother never 
gave him up." Then she was gone. 

My God whose love fills this Book; my God 
who gave His Son to die, has not given you up yet. 
Your sweet old mother, your dear father, your 
wife, your friends, your minister, none of them 
have given you up. Let us pray. 

Blessed God, our Father, in the name of Jesus 
Christ our Saviour, we pray for everybody here 
who is unsaved. We pray especially for those who 



THE ACCEPTED TIME 81 

have said : I want you to pray for me. Oh, God, 
help them all and bless them. Do not let any of 
us be indifferent to the opportunities sent us of 
God. Bless all the ministers and workers. May 
there fall upon us such a blessing as we have never 
known before. Graciously use us these days, in 
Jesus' name. Amen. 



VII 

" PEEPAKE TO MEET THY GOD " 

THE subject for the evening has been an- 
nounced as Preparedness. I might well 
speak to you to-night concerning pre- 
paredness for the nation, but I have a greater sub- 
ject than that. I have something of greater im- 
portance to say. My subject deals with time and 
eternity, and the preparation we must make in 
time for eternity. You will find my text in the 
Book of Amos 4:12: " Prepare to meet thy God." 
Before you sleep this evening I wish that you 
would open your Bibles. I would like you to start 
with the first words — " In the beginning, God ! " 
This is the right starting point for a man's faith. 
Forget God, and there is disaster ahead. Build 
your plans without God and the storms will over- 
take you. Try to build character without God and 
defeat is certain. " In the beginning, God ! " $Tow 
turn to the last Book in the Bible, to Revelation 
20 : 12 : "I saw the dead, small and great, stand 
before God." Start with the one and end with 
the other, and this is the story of God's dealings 
with His people. We see Him as creator. We 
behold Him as the ruler of nations. We see Him 
as the judge of His ancient people. We behold 

Him as the father of Jesus Christ. We hear Him 

82 



"PREPABE TO MEET THY GOD" 83 

crying out through the lips of His Son to a wicked 
generation. At last we see Him seated upon the 
Throne. Time is being finished. The Books are 
being opened, and the dead, small and great, are 
standing before God. I wish I could give you a 
right conception of God. I think your faces would 
whiten and your lips tremble. Stop for a moment 
and think about Him. He holds the winds in His 
hands, yet last night you took His name in vain. 
In the hollow of His hand the seas beat and throb, 
yet to-day you blasphemed Him. He has showered 
His love upon you ever since you came into the 
world, yet you have resisted Him. Prepare to 
meet thy God. Prepare to meet Him, because He 
is God. 

We read in the Old Testament — " the fool hath 
said in his heart, there is no God." Only a fool 
could say that. Think of the old argument of 
cause and effect. I see effects all about me, and I 
must go back to the great " First Cause." Then 
there is the old argument of design. I see design 
everywhere in this world. The seasons coming and 
going. Stars moving in their courses. The world 
turning on its axis. How suggestive all this is. 
The sun rising and setting with such precision that 
the scientists can tell you days, weeks, months, and 
years ahead, the exact moment of rising and set- 
ting. Who has done all this? The little flower 
that lifts its head at your feet, how perfectly 
formed it is. The bird that flies above your head, 



84 "PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD" 

with the colours of the rainbow in its wings. What 
artist has done this ? Then there is the old argu- 
ment suggested by the longing of our natures for 
God. If you go to the savages of dark lands, 
where heathenism reigns, and the savage in his 
blindness bows down to wood and stone, — why does 
he do this? Because he longs for something 
greater than himself. Then look at these enlight- 
ened times. The aspiration takes better shape. 
The longing grows to a higher kind. I know that 
this longing in my soul for God and eternal life 
was placed there by Himself. Just as the fin of 
the fish is the prophecy of the water in which it 
swims, as the wing of the bird is the prophecy of 
the air in which it moves, — so I know that this 
longing in my soul is an unanswerable argument 
for his existence. I know, and so do you, that God 
is. Prepare to meet thy God. 

The closest fixed star is so far away that if you 
had an airship and should attempt to reach the star, 
you would require ages and ages of time. If you 
should pay but a small amount of money per mile 
for your passage, it would take millions upon mil- 
lions of dollars. Yet men say there is no God. 
The sun sends down its light, and has been sending 
light and heat and warmth through all the years 
and ages past. When we estimate the distance of 
the sun and the length of time that light takes to 
travel, can you say that this is all by chance ? No ! 
Hear me! Prepare to meet thy God. 



"PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD" 85 

God is all powerful. I can take a cannonball in 
my hand and throw it a little distance. Some of 
these strong young fellows from the college would 
far surpass me. Driving through the streets one 
day, a friend said to me: " Did you see that police- 
man ? " " Well, what about him % "■ I answered. 
" He is the champion thrower of the hammer in 
all the world," said my friend. " It was he who 
came out first in the last Olympian contest." But 
God took not only our world, but countless worlds 
like it and tossed them into space as I might blow 
a bubble. He is omnipotent. 

He knows everything. You may deceive me. I 
know men fairly well, but you could deceive me. 
You cannot deceive God. One of these days you 
will face Him. One of these days your record will 
face you. One of these days you must answer be- 
fore God for a misspent life. He knows you 
through and through. 

God is everywhere. Listen while I read this 
Scripture : " Whither shall I go from thy Spirit ? 
or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I 
ascend up into heaven, thou art there : if I make my 
bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the 
wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost 
parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead 
me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, 
Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night 
shall be light about me." You cannot get away 
from God. 



86 « PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD" 

One day, in one of the schools of Chicago, a gen- 
tleman wanted to illustrate a point. He drew an 
eye on the blackboard. It was so perfectly drawn 
that the children in different parts of the room 
thought that the eye was looking straight at them. 
The School Board insisted that the eye should be 
erased. The children were becoming nervous. 
Men trample God's love beneath their feet and go 
their own way in life. There is one verse of the 
Bible that they forget. It is this: "Thou God 
seest me." He saw you yesterday, or last night, 
in your sin. What He saw was written in a book. 
Men are always making records. I saw in the 
British Museum a piece of stone the size of my 
book. They told me that it was six thousand years 
old at least. Right in the center of it there was 
the print of a bird's foot. When the stone was 
soft, six thousand years ago, the bird put its foot 
there and left an imprint. Six thousand years of 
record ! So I cry out to you, young men and older 
men, business and professional men, men from the 
shops, women of society, prepare to meet thy God. 
You have been guilty of adultery, you of drunk- 
enness, you of something else. " I saw the dead, 
small and great, stand before God, and the books 
were opened." Because they will be opened, — 
prepare to meet thy God. 

God has equipped us all with capital. He gave 
you your mind. He gave you your hands, your 
will, your heart. He gave you your feet, your lips, 



"PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD" 87 

your eyes. You must give an account. Have your 
eyes looked upon that which is evil? Has your 
heart held thoughts that were impure? Has your 
mind been in rebellion against Him? Have your 
hands pushed down instead of lifted up ? To what 
houses have your feet taken you? Prepare — pre- 
pare to meet thy God. I ask you to prepare be- 
cause you may meet Him sooner than you think. 
I have no desire to frighten anyone, but I would 
do even that if it were the only way. I do not wish 
to appeal to your emotions, but I would do that if 
it were the only way. Perhaps you may soon face 
Him. You may meet Him before to-morrow 
morning. How do you know that you can keep an 
engagement at nine o'clock to-morrow morning? 
There is a doctor of repute beside you. Turn and 
whisper to him. How about it, Doctor, nine o'clock 
in the morning ? I know what his answer will be. 
He will say: Only God knows. When you close 
your eyes in sleep to-night your vitality will drop, 
and drop, and drop, until at last it will reach the 
lowest point. Then it will rise again until the day 
is born and you awake — unless God should touch 
you with His finger. I don't understand why men 
stay away from God. I don't understand you 
young college men. There has never been a day 
since colleges were established when trained intel- 
lects were at such a premium. Trained minds and 
strong characters can do more to-day than ever be- 
fore. Yet business men, professional men, and 



88 "PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD" 

students, too, plunge into sin. To-morrow is 
eternity. « 

I stood at the foot of my pulpit and a man came 
to me and said : " I wish that you might have such 
perfect health as I have. Never in my life have 
I had a headache, never a pain, never have I called 
a doctor for myself." I was his minister. A few 
months after, my telephone bell summoned me to 
his house. An excited voice said : " Hurry, 
Hurry." I went, to find his daughter alone with 
him, the rest of the family had gone away. Her 
father had risen saying that he must keep an early 
business appointment. " Meet me in the breakfast 
room," he said. In fifteen minutes she was there, 
but her father was not. She climbed the stairway 
to his room and found him seated in his chair with 
a newspaper on his knees, head back, eyes shut. 
Never an ache or a pain! Never a doctor! Fif- 
teen minutes' warning! Dead! But you young 
men say : How old was he ? Past sixty. We were 
seated in a hotel in Australia and were resting for 
the evening, when a quick knock came at the door. 
I took a cable from the boy, and got the code book 
and deciphered this : " Charles died to-day. Sick 
two days." He was dead. My nephew. A prom- 
ising athlete, trained in a military school. Never 
sick a day in his life. Not a man in the college 
could surpass him in physical strength. Gone in 
two days. Prepare to meet thy God. 

There is only one way to be prepared. Science 



"PKEPAKE TO MEET THY GOD" 89 

has a fine ministry in the world, but it does not get 
you ready for eternity. Philosophy is interesting 
as a study. It is wonderful in its teachings, but it 
stops this side of eternity. Infidelity seems to be 
all right when your health is fine, your friends 
many, and your family circle unbroken, but when 
your heart aches, and your baby dies, and you get 
a telegram saying : Mother is dead, or — Father has 
gone, — then all the infidelity in the world will 
mock you. 

Let me say a word to you men. I want to say 
that if you turn away from God's only mean3 of 
preparation, you miss the best for this life. There 
is only one way to prepare. What is it? Believe 
on the Lord Jesus Christ ! Turn from your sins ! 
Accept Him! A friend of mine was going to 
preach in a country village. One of the officers of 
the church met him, and, as they walked along an 
old-fashioned board walk, my friend stopped and 
said : " What is that ? " There came from the win- 
dow of a house near the board walk an agonizing 
cry of a man. As they listened, they heard the 
voice say : " Oh, Jesus, can't you help me ? " The 
church officer said : " The man who lives there is 
dying, and he has rejected God all his life. He 
has led scores of our boys and girls away from the 
faith of their fathers. He is dying in infidelity." 
And the cry came again : " Oh, Jesus, can't you 
help me ? " Every minister in the community was 
trying to help him. Many of the Christians were 



90 "PEEP ARE TO MEET THY GOD" 

interested in him. He could not find the way. 
The last thing they heard him say was the sen- 
tence : " Oh, Jesus, can't you, can't you ? " Pre- 
pare to meet thy God. 

I do not want you to think that God is other 
than just, or that He is other than loving. It is 
true that ever since you came into the world He 
has been seeking you. Jesus Christ came all the 
way to Calvary for you. He is seeking you now. 
Listen! He is seeking you now. Don't reject him. 
Hear this text again : " I saw the dead, small and 
great, stand before God." Driving swiftly down 
the streets of one of our western cities, a man lost 
control of his horses. A courageous man, spring- 
ing from the sidewalk, brought the horses to a 
standstill and saved a man's life. By a strange 
coincidence the man whose life was saved was 
charged with murder. The trial judge was the 
man who had saved him. Later the trial came on. 
The lawyers had made their pleas. The judge had 
charged the jury. They had reached a verdict, and 
just as the judge turned to speak to him, the 
prisoner arose and said : " Your honour, I don't 
think you know me." The judge said : " Answer 
my question. Have you anything to say why a 
sentence of death should not be passed upon you ? " 
Stretching out his arms, the prisoner said again: 
" I don't think you remember me. I am the man 
you saved. Don't you remember? Have mercy! 
Have mercy ! " The judge leaned forward with 



"PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD" $1 

tears on his cheeks and said : " Yes, I do remem- 
ber you. I have known you ever since you came 
before me, but then I was your saviour, now I am 
your judge. I must sentence you to die." And 
to-day He is your Saviour, tears in His eyes, blood 
upon His brow, scourges upon His back, agony in 
His heart, saying : " Turn ye, Turn ye, for why 
will you die." 

I had read the funeral service in a beautiful 
home, when the undertaker came to the door and 
said : " Will all the friends kindly retire. The 
members of the family are coming in." The 
daughter of the home came in leading her father. 
The mother was lying in the coffin. The old man 
bent forward and said to the wife who had jour- 
neyed with him all the years : " Good-bye. I will 
soon see you." The daughter said it after him, 
and two or three of the boys said it. The eldest 
boy was a drunkard. He stood inside the door with 
the hot tears running down his cheeks. I walked 
over to him and said : " Tom, come and say good- 
bye to your mother." Partly from weakness, and 
partly because he was under the influence of drink, 
he staggered forward. But I never heard a boy 
cry like that. Such sobs as came from his heart ! 
Over and over he kept saying: " Mother, Mother! " 
His sister stepped forward and said : " Tom, don't 
take on so. Mother has gone to Heaven, and you 
will soon see her." He threw one arm around my 
shoulder and the other around hers, and cried out: 



92 "PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD" 

" Oh ? my God ! I am not going. I am not going.' 7 
Prepare to meet thy God. Acknowledge your 
sins. Accept Him as your Saviour. Confess Him 
before men. Follow Him faithfully. One day 
you will meet God, and will hear His welcome — 
" Well-done." 



yiii 

LOSING AND FINDING JESUS 

I HOPE that my subject will prove practical 
and helpful. It is: Losing and Finding 
Jesus! There are hundreds and thousands 
of people who start to follow Him and then, for 
some reason, they are turned aside. Perhaps, like 
Demas, the pleasures of the world entrance them. 
At any rate, they lose Jesus. There are some in 
this audience now to whom the subject applies. 
My text is found in Luke 2 : 46 — " After three 
days they found him." 

I tell you the hopeful thing about it at the very 
start. We may lose Him, but He does not lose us. 
He is not far away, and if we are willing to seek 
after Him, He will surely be found of us. After 
three days they found Him ! This text brings first 
of all an Old Testament picture before us. Turn 
to the Book of Exodus, the twelfth chapter. It is 
night. The night of doom. Homes are in danger. 
The Passover lamb has been slain. The blood has 
been collected in a basin. A bunch of hyssop has 
been dipped in the blood and the blood sprinkled 
on the posts of the door, for the word of God was, 
" When I see the blood, I will pass your door." 
Now turn from the Old Testament to the New, to 

the words in I Corinthians 5 : 7 — " Christ our 
93 



94 LOSING AND FINDING JESUS 

passover ! " I know, as you do, that the Old Testa- 
ment loses its power over us unless we put Christ 
into it, or unless we find the Christ who has always 
been there. So the Old Testament passover links 
us to the New Testament passover, our Lord Him- 
self. Then turn to Matthew 26 : 18, and read the 
latest mention of the passover in the Gospel. The 
disciples have come to the Master, saying: Where 
shall we eat the feast ? And the Master said : " Go 
into the city to such a man and say unto him, the 
Master saith, my time is at hand; I will keep the 
passover at thy house with my disciples." Oh! 
this was a memorable keeping of the feast. Judas 
was present, and the Master said, " One of you shall 
betray me." They began to say : " Lord, is it I % " 
and Jesus answered, "It is he who dippeth in the 
dish with me." Then Judas turned to go out, and 
Jesus said : " What thou doest, do quickly." Just 
here a suggestive sentence is found. " It was 
night." I stop long enough to say that when a man 
turns his back upon Jesus, it is always night. You 
cannot drive back the darkness and the gloom. 
Turn your back on Jesus, and just so surely as 
you do the darkness will begin to settle about you. 
It was a memorable feast, too, for this reason. 
It says that when they had sung an hymn, they 
went out. Here is a new picture of Jesus. We 
have seen Him under many different circumstances 
and conditions. We have seen Him at the mar- 
riage feast in Galilee, when the conscious water 



LOSING AND FINDING JESUS 95 

saw its God and blushed into wine. We have seen 
Him stop the funeral procession near Nain and 
take the boy by the hand and give him back to his 
mother. We have seen Him with His disciples 
about Him, teaching them to pray. We have seen 
Him sleeping in a boat. But this is the only time 
in His earthly ministry when we find Him singing. 
I wish I might have heard Him. I heard Patti 
sing once, and I heard my mother sing many times. 
I know what sweet singing is. But to have heard. 
Jesus, what a joy that would have been ! Just to 
see His face light up, His eyes glisten, and His 
lips tremble as He sang. When they had sung an 
hymn they went out! 

It will be well to know something about the im- 
portance of the celebration of the passover in the 
estimation of the Jewish people. A month before 
the feast, special preparations were made. Roads 
were made level and easy to travel. Bridges over 
streams were strengthened. As the time of the 
feast drew near, there was great excitement. The 
night before the passover, every Jewish house was 
cleaned thoroughly, and when the last bit of clean- 
ing was done, the head of the house said something 
like this : " And now, if there is any leaven in this 
house (leaven in Jewish thought meant the prin- 
ciple of evil) it is here against my will." Would 
not that be a fine thing for a Christian to say when 
he is asking God to search his heart? When he 
realizes that he has lost power and that he is in 



96 LOSING AND FINDING JESUS 

spiritual darkness, let him say: Search me, oh, 
God, and try my thoughts, and see if there he any 
wicked way in me. And then let him add : " If 
there is anything in my life that is displeasing to 
Thee, it is here against my will." 

In the morning, the people who were waiting for 
the passover were awakened suddenly, as the new 
day was born, by the sound of trumpets. Then 
they sang together the 113th Psalm — " Praise ye 
the Lord. Praise, O ye servants of the Lord, praise 
the name of the Lord. Blessed be the name of the 
Lord from this time forth and for evermore. From 
the rising of the sun unto the going down of the 
same the Lord's name is to be praised." The 
whole city sang it. Can you imagine the power 
and the thrill of it? 

We know of three persons who were present at 
the celebration of the passover mentioned in our 
Scripture. They were a father and a mother and 
a boy of twelve. Of all the people in the city that 
day, the boy of twelve alone knew the depth of the 
meaning of the passover feast. He knew about the 
slain lamb. He knew about the sprinkled blood. 
He knew about the ascriptions of praise to Je- 
hovah. So these three kept the feast together. 
When the day is finished and they are ready to 
start home, messages of farewell are spoken. They 
journey with the crowd, and, as they go, they talk 
of the joy of the occasion. Suddenly, the mother 
of the boy turns to her husband to say : " Where 



LOSING AND FINDING JESUS 97 

is Jesus ? " Their faces whiten and they begin to 
search for him. Now, I want you to notice this 
very significant expression, " and they sought Him 
among their kinsfolk and acquaintance " but could 
not find Him. Three days they sought Him, and 
at last they make their way back to the city where 
they kept the feast, and here they find Jesus, sit- 
ting in the presence of the wise men asking and 
answering questions. Now come back to my text — 
" After three days they found Him." Losing 
Jesus and finding Jesus! 

In order to find Jesus, it is necessary to walk 
with Him. It is possible for any of us to walk 
with Jesus. Put that down and never forget it! 
Enoch walked with God. Dr. Andrew Bonar of 
Scotland used to say that they walked so long to- 
gether, and climbed so high in their journey, that 
at last the Lord turned to Enoch and said: 
" Enoch, we are much nearer heaven than earth. 
Why not pass in now ? " And the doors swung 
open and they passed through the gates into the 
city. The disciples at Emmaus walked with Jesus. 
They did not know Him, but as they walked and 
talked with Him, suddenly their hearts burned 
within them. They knew that there was a mar- 
vellous person with them, but they could not quite 
interpret who he was. As He sat at meat and 
blessed the food, there was something in the way 
He lifted His hands or bowed His head — and they 
knew Him. We can find Jesus in just such simple 



98 LOSING AND FINDING JESUS 

ways as this. Walk with Him and talk with Him 
and you will know Him. The more you talk with 
Him and about Him, the better you will know 
Him. If you have lost Him you can find Him. 

Then do the thing that he wants you to do, and 
suddenly you will face Him and He will face you. 
You can find Jesus by doing His will. Probably 
the sweetest thing you know about your father is 
that he walked with Jesus and talked with Him. 
It is not because he was rich that you remember 
him. You remember him because he walked with 
the Master. Let me paint a picture for you. It 
is a picture of an aged man who has been in the 
habit of attending church all his life. Now he is 
an old man, walking with feeble step, yet every 
Sunday morning he makes his way to the house 
of God. He prefers to walk when the weather is 
fine, although he has a thoughtful boy who is ready 
to take him in a car. He faces the preacher at the 
front, although he can hear very little of what is 
said. Many persons would think that a reason for 
staying at home. He loves to worship God in the 
church. The few words that he hears cheer him 
mightily. As he meets his pastor at the door, the 
old man clasps his hand and says : " I know that 
my Redeemer liveth ! " " So you heard me say that, 
did you ? " said the pastor. " Yes," said the old 
man, " I heard you say that, and it made my heart 
burn." Faintly he had caught, too, what the min- 
ister was saying about family worship. He thought 



LOSING AND FINDING JESUS 99 

they were taking account of how many observed 
family worship, and he raised his hand as high as 
possible and held it up as long as he could. Yes, 
he was saying to himself, I have had family wor- 
ship ever since I have had a home, and I have 
walked with Jesus all the days of my life. Is 
there anything more beautiful than this ? It is in 
these simple ways men find Jesus. 

The sweetest thing you know about your mother 
is this — she walked with Jesus. Do you remem- 
ber when sickness came and your brother died? 
The light of life went out of your home, and your 
father and mother came back from the cemetery 
and sat by the fireside. For a long while neither 
of them spoke. Then at last one of them said: 
" The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away." 
And the other promptly answered : " Blessed be 
the name of the Lord." Listen to me ! It is pos- 
sible to walk with Jesus in the storm, to walk with 
Him in the gloom, to walk with Him when the 
stars are dead and the moon refuses to shine. 

It is a sad thing to walk without Him. The sad 
part of it is that you never quite miss Him until 
the crisis comes. Oh, you can go along with a 
jaunty step when your health is perfect, with 
a laugh and a cheer when everybody is applauding 
you. You think you can do without Him when 
your bank account is abundant, but when the day 
is dreary and the night is long, then to walk with- 
out Him, ah, that is the tragedy of life ! To walk 



100 LOSING AND FINDING JESUS 

without Him when temptation and trial come ! Oh, 
if I could only make plain to you what this means ! 
All of us need Him more sorely than words can 
express. If we have missed step with Jesus and 
have lost Him any way out of our lives, let us go 
back to Him to-day. 

Mr. Alexander and I were in Kentucky at an 
old mountain school for whites. As I was speak- 
ing to the students, I noticed in the audience a 
woman dressed in deep mourning. Afterwards I 
spoke to her and she told me that her heart was 
broken. She said : " I had one boy, and he was 
drowned the past summer. He was driving down 
the country road in a buggy with his sweetheart, 
and the horse took fright and upset the buggy in 
a narrow road. They were thrown into the river, 
where there was a swift current. The horse and 
harness and wheels and buggy-top all became en- 
tangled. My boy saved his sweetheart, but he him- 
self was drowned. I was sitting alone in my room 
while they were dragging the river for him. My 
dear old mountain mother, my boy's grandmother, 
came to see me, and she said : ' Have you prayed ? ? 
I was too heartbroken to pray, but we got down 
on our knees and my mother prayed with me. I 
had one great concern, now that he was dead. I 
was afraid that when they dragged the river the 
hooks might catch his precious face and mar him. 
My mother held me in her arms as if I were a 
baby, and we rocked back and forth in the old- 



LOSING AND FINDING JESUS 101 

fashioned chair and prayed together — ' Blessed 
God, when this boy's precious body is found, don't 
let the hooks catch in his face. Let it be in his gar- 
ments, or in his belt.' And do you know, sir, that 
before I had stopped sobbing, I heard a noise in the 
yard, and I ran to open the door. There was his 
body, and the hooks had caught in his belt." I 
have learned that while you can get along without 
Christ when the sun is shining, you cannot get 
along without Him when your heart is broken. It 
is a sad thing to walk without Him. 

They sought Him among their kinsfolk and ac- 
quaintance and could not find Him. Is not this a 
pathetic thing? Oh, it is sad indeed for a boy to 
search for Christ in his mother and not find Him. 
For a boy to come to the Tabernacle and hear the 
songs and sermons, and then say : " I know where 
I will go, I will go home and ask my mother about 
Jesus." And then, not to find Him ! What a tragedy 
that is ! For a child to say : " I will go out of this 
building and go back to my father and speak to 
him and find Jesus." Then not to find Him ! The 
other day, in the Art Institute in Chicago, a 
mother was walking carelessly among the pictures. 
She stopped with her little child before a great 
painting, and somebody said : " That is Jesus." 
The little child, looking up to her mother, said: 
" Who is Jesus ? " And the mother, catching the 
child's hand, said : " Jesus was a man. Come 
along!" 



102 LOSING AND FINDING JESUS 

There is another story, and it is this: A plain 
little home had undecorated walls, except for a very 
poor print of Christ before Pilate. The picture 
showed Him standing there with head bowed, and 
hands bound. A little child, playing about the 
room, said: " Who is that?" '''Why, my dear," 
answered the mother, " that is Jesus." " And 
what did Jesus say ? " asked the child, simply. 
The mother took her in her arms and held her 
close. This is what He said : " Suffer little chil- 
dren to come unto me, and forbid them not." 
Happy is the mother who can help her child to find 
Jesus ! 

Oh, it is a sad thing to try to find Jesus in any- 
one whom we trust and not to find Him. It is sad 
to seek for Jesus in a minister and not find Him. 
I was preaching in one of the Pennsylvania cities, 
when a reporter came to a young minister and 
asked about myself. " How do you like him ? " 
The young minister answered : " I don't like him 
at all. I have not the slightest interest in him." 
Well, I don't wonder that people say that about 
me. But I went to this young minister and said 
to him: " Why did you say that to the reporter ? " 
He was a thorough gentleman, and he answered: 
" Well, I will tell you. I don't believe what you 
preach. I took a fellowship in philosophy in the 
university where I graduated. I have studied a 
great deal, and I cannot agree with you. I stand 
with the critics. I cannot accept the authority of 



LOSING AND FINDING JESUS GL03 

Christ. Jesus was a marvellous man, but I cannot 
accept His deity." I said to the young minister in 
the friendliest way I could : " I never took a fel- 
lowship in philosophy, and I have been a very busy 
man, but I have found Jesus, and I know Him 
well. I have known Him under all circumstances 
and conditions. As for this book, I look into it 
and tell you that if you read it merely with a crit- 
ical eye, it will shut itself up like a sensitive plant, 
but if you go at it with love, it will open up like 
a rose." " Tell me something more," said the 
young minister. So I went on. I gave him a text 
to preach from. I said to him: Preach this — ■ 
" And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto 
me." He took that text and preached with tears, 
and a hundred people in his church wrote or tele- 
phoned him that it was wonderful. It was the first 
time anybody had thanked him for preaching. It 
is a sad thing to seek for Jesus in a minister and 
not find Him. 

All the time without Him is lost time. One day 
to lose Him! Three days to find Him! All the 
time without Him is lost time. You might as well 
make up your mind to this now — that your time is 
not worth anything to you or to God if you are 
without Jesus. Come back and keep step with 
Him. 

They found Him where they lost Him. Where 
did you lose Him? Somebody will say in a whis- 
per: " I know where I lost Him. I lost Him when 



104 LOSING AND FINDING JESUS 

I was impatient in my home and did not ask for 
forgiveness. I was indignant and unfair to the 
children, and did not confess it. I was harsh with 
my servants, or nnfair in my business dealings. 
In that way I lost Him." Others will say : " I 
lost Him at the dance, or at the card table. I lost 
Him when I lifted drink to my lips. I lost Him 
when I stopped studying this Book. I lost Him 
when I was too busy to pray." 

Oh, well, it does not make any difference where 
you lost Him. Come back and find Him, and you 
will find Him with the same great-hearted love. 
You will find Him with arms outstretched. You 
will find Him saying : " I will restore the years 
that the canker worm has eaten." Come back! 
Come back! God help you to do it! He will, if 
you will trust Him. 



IX 
THREE GEEAT THINGS 

I AM speaking to-night of three great things. 
The text is in II Samuel 12 : 13—" And 
David said unto Nathan: I have sinned 
against the Lord. And Nathan said unto David: 
The Lord also hath put away thy sin." 

This is one of the saddest stories of the Old 
Testament. It makes our faces flush hot with 
shame. It is a sad thing to be disappointed in a 
man, as in this case to find a man who on one side 
is capable of writing the Twenty-third Psalm, and 
on the other side capable of committing a great sin. 
But this is the way of sin. It is dark and insidious. 
The explanation in David's case is not far to seek. 
It was not that he had a bad heart, but that he 
looked upon sin and sin carried him away. There 
is an old saying that runs like this : " The idle 
brain is the devil's workshop." And there is an- 
other saying, equally old and equally true : " The 
idle brain always tempts the devil." Your strong- 
est temptation never came to you when you were 
busy. It was when your hands were not reaching 
out to help others, when you were sitting in idle- 
ness, while others were moving. David was on the 
roof of his palace, and he was tempted to sin. But 

the temptation itself was not the cause of David's 

105 



106 THREE GREAT THINGS 

fall. Sometimes when we have been in holy places, 
even on our knees, sinful thoughts have flashed 
through us. The purest and best people have said 
this. This again is the way of sin. David's 
trouble was this: He looked at sin a second time, 
and then a third and a fourth, and very soon 
the man who was strong enough to do marvellous 
things for God trembled and fell. " Let him that 
thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." 

There is one great text in the Bible that is in- 
tended especially for those who are sorely tempted. 
It is this : " Resist the devil and he will flee from 
you." Your trouble was not merely that you were 
tempted. Rather the trouble was that when you 
were tempted you did not immediately turn to God 
for deliverance. 

After David's sin, God sent Nathan to him to 
speak to him. You remember what Nathan said: 
There was a certain man who had nothing save one 
little ewe lamb. I imagine as the story went on 
David's eyes began to flash, and his fingers to 
twitch, and as Nathan finished his story : " They 
took the ewe lamb and put it to death," David the 
King sprang to his feet and said : " The man who 
would do that must die." Then Nathan came out 
with his startling words : " Thou art the man," 
and David stood before Nathan a convicted man. 
With a cry of his soul, he said : " I have sinned 
against the Lord," and Nathan promptly replied: 
" The Lord also hath put away thy sin." 



THREE GREAT THINGS 107 

There are three great things here to be con- 
sidered. 

First, a great sin. It was a great sin because he 
knew better. It was a great sin because it was 
against his position as a king. When David 
sinned the whole house of Israel suffered. When 
you sin jour friends suffer, your children suffer, 
your mother suffers, Jesus Christ suffers. All sin 
is great for this reason. It is against God. I hold 
up before you this Book, because I want you to 
understand that there is something in this Book 
that men need who have sinned. This is atone- 
ment. The atonement that is provided in the sacri- 
ficial death of Jesus Christ. There are two verses 
of Scripture that come before me at this moment. 
One, " the wages of sin is death." The other, " the 
soul that sinneth it shall die." God has never taken 
those verses back. But there is a third verse that 
says: "Christ died for our sins." According to 
the Scripture, if you have sinned there is a way of 
escape; the Saviour of the world has made atone- 
ment. 

Second, a great repentance. You have probably 
read the Fifty-first Psalm. You can hardly for- 
get it. David wrote this psalm after he had re- 
pented. " Wash me thoroughly from mine in- 
iquity and purge me from my sin." It was a great 
repentance. Remember that repentance is not 
merely sorrow. Sorrow is the beginning of repent- 
ance, but it does not go far enough. Remember 



108 THREE GREAT THINGS 

also that repentance is not mere remorse. Remorse 
is a part of repentance, but it is not the whole 
thing. I suppose there is not, in all the world, a 
man who realizes his sin and does not suffer. He 
has sorrow enough and remorse enough, but sor- 
row and remorse are not all of repentance. Listen ! 
You never truly repent until with God's help you 
turn away from sin unto God. This is repentance, 
and I want to say that if you feel that you cannot 
do it yourself, if you have no strength to do it, I 
want to say that just so soon as you know that you 
are a sinner and lift your eyes to Christ the 
Saviour, that moment all the strength you need 
will be yours. You can turn away from sin, for 
God will help you. David did, and so may you. 

Third, a great forgiveness. Read the Thirty- 
second Psalm. David wrote it after he had been 
forgiven. The Thirty-second Psalm is a perfect 
picture of one who has been forgiven. We are told 
that there is a covering for sin. What is this cover- 
ing? You have tried to hide your sins, but you 
cannot do it. You think that you can hide sin, 
but it will come forth. I was preaching in a town 
in Ohio where there is a college and I heard a story 
about the President of the institution. One morn- 
ing he was leading a Sunday School. It was De- 
cision Day. A teacher came to him and said : " I 
want to give you something. You don't know me 
very well, but I give you this letter and in it is 
something I want you to dispose of." The Presi- 



THREE GREAT THINGS 109 

dent opened the letter and found inside a very 
beautiful lace handkerchief. This was the letter 
he read, and which afterwards he showed to me: 
" When I was a little girl in a Sunday School, 
somebody walking down the aisle of the School 
dropped this valuable lace handkerchief. I stooped 
quickly and picked it up. I am now a woman 
grown, and have children of my own. I have tried 
to dispose of this handkerchief and I could not. I 
have tried to give it away, and I could not. I have 
tried to destroy it, and I could not. Somehow it 
always keeps coming before me. To-day I am giv- 
ing it to you, asking you to do with it what you 
please. For years it has hurt me." It is impos- 
sible to cover up sin. 

The other day in Springfield, someone went to 
one of the ministers and said : " I want you to take 
this bit of money. I took it wrongfully when I 
was little more than a child. I have compounded 
the interest and this is the full amount. All my 
years I have tried to cover this thing over. When- 
ever I have knelt to pray, whenever I have tried to 
do Christian service, this money has risen up be- 
fore me." But in this Thirty-second Psalm we 
read that our sins may be covered. How? If 
there is in your life something that is wrong, some 
sin that you have tried to hide, take Jesus Christ 
as your Saviour to-night and His precious blood 
will cover your sin out of sight. A great forgive- 
ness! 



110 THREE GREAT THINGS 

My friend Samuel H. Hadley, of the Water 
Street Mission, Eew York, was sitting outside his 
Mission door one day when a little boy came and 
said : " Mr. Hadley, will you ask Mrs. Hadley to 
give me a piece of cloth and a needle and thread ? " 
" What do you want them for ? " asked Mr. Hadley. 
The boy answered : " To mend my trousers." My 
friend said that he looked at his ragged clothes and 
it seemed as if they were not worth mending. He 
hesitated a moment, and the child burst into tears 
and started down Water street, turning under 
Brooklyn bridge. But Mr. Hadley ran after him 
and said : " Come back. You go upstairs and Mrs. 
Hadley will take care of you." When he came 
down, his clothing was mended and he was leaving 
the Mission. My friend said to him : " What is 
your story?" He answered: "I stole $20 from 
my father in Philadelphia, and then I came to this 
city. I have spent all the money and I am afraid 
to go home. I have been sleeping nights wherever 
I could." "Well," said Mr. Hadley, "go back 
home and your father will take you in." " Oh, no, 
he won't," said the boy. " Well, come into the 
Mission," said Mr. Hadley, " and I will send your 
father a letter." This is what he wrote : " Dear 
Sir : Your boy is very, very sorry for his sin. He 
is in my Mission here and he wants to come home. 
What shall I tell him ? " The letter reached Phila- 
delphia in the morning, and before eleven o'clock 
a telegram came back to Mr. Hadley, at 316 Water 



THREE GREAT THINGS 111 

street : " Tell tlie dear boy lie is forgiven and I 
want him to come home at once." 

This is my message to you this evening. When 
Jesus Christ died on Calvary, His heart broke for 
the sins of mankind. Forgiveness was born then, 
and to-night God is saying : Turn ye, for why will 
ye die ? Mr. William Reynolds, of Peoria, Illinois, 
was one night invited by the Governor of Illinois 
to meet him at the prison in Joliet. He made his 
way to the prison, and at the request of the Gov- 
ernor spoke to the prisoners about the Gospel. 
Then the Governor stood up, and holding a long 
envelope in his hand, he said : " Men, this is the 
day on which I said I would give a pardon to one 
man in the prison." Mr. Reynolds told me that 
every man in the prison broke the prison rules and 
leaned forward. Every man was saying to him- 
self : I wonder if it can be for me. Then the Gov- 
ernor said : " This pardon I am going to give is 
for a life prisoner." At once every man in the 
prison sank back except the life men. You could 
pick them out all over the prison. Then the Gov- 
ernor spoke again : " This pardon is for -," 

and then came the man's number and his name, but 
nobody moved forward. After waiting a moment, 
the Governor suggested that the man whose name 
had been announced should put his hand up. A 
white hand went up in obedience to the Governor's 
suggestion, and suddenly a man fell with a thud 
on the floor. They carried him forward, and the 



112 THREE GREAT THINGS 

Governor came down from the platform and put 
the pardon in his right hand. My friend helped 
to carry him out into the sunlight. 

I am preaching a short sermon, but I want every- 
body in the audience to hear me. I have a pardon, 
signed and sealed. It is full and free. You may 
have it if you will take it. It is sealed with the 
blood of Jesus Christ. I plead with you to take 
Eirn ? and in taking Him to accept this pardon. 
Weeks have passed by and some of you are resist- 
ing still. Some of you have never yet said " yes " 
to the call of Christ. Say it to-night! Come! 



YOUR SINS 

THIS is our text. It is startling and il- 
luminating. You could find it in any 
part of the Bible, in Genesis or Revela- 
tion, Exodus or The Epistles. But I find it espe- 
cially in Isaiah 59 : 2. First of all let me say that 
it is extremely personal. Not your neighbour's 
sins, nor your husband's sins, nor the sins of your 
friends, but — your sins! I want you each to have 
this text as your own. 

Let us begin with secret sin, The sin you think 
nobody else knows about in the world. I might as 
well tell you in the beginning that you cannot hide 
sin. You may think that it is possible, but the 
friend who walks with you knows by the way you 
walk. The one who talks with you knows by the 
manner of your speech. The one who lives with 
you knows what are your habits. You cannot hide 
sin. If sin can be hidden from men, it cannot be 
hidden from God. It is done in the light of God's 
countenance. "No, you cannot cover sin. I speak 
to you this evening about this subject, not because 
it is pleasant to talk about personal sin. I have 
another reason for speaking about it. I know that 
if I could turn your attention toward Jesus Christ, 
everybody would leave this building with bondage 

113 



114 YOUR SINS 

broken, chains snapped, darkness dissipated, doubt 
removed. So my subject is your personal sin. 

Take up the newspaper of this morning or this 
evening and turn over the pages one after another. 
Everywhere there is the mark of sin. Sin has hurt 
some father, injured some mother, handicapped 
the life of someone who had started out well. Or 
if you do not read the newspaper, go into your 
library, take down a book and read history. You 
will see that the story is the same. Go into the art 
gallery and in many pictures you will find some 
suggestion or mark of sin. My subject is very 
practical. Your sins ! Not the sin of the man at 
your side, not the sins of the church. Your sins ! 

If you will turn over the pages of God's Word 
you will find the story of sin from the beginning. 
Follow this : 

Adam — The beginning of sin. 
Cain — The mark of sin. 
Absalom — The dividend of sin. 
Belshazzar — The prejudice of sin. 
Judas — The disloyalty of sin. 

Listen to this question : Is your heart right with 
God? Your sin! I do not need to tell you that 
sin is bondage. It is worse than bondage. The 
man who told me last Sunday afternoon that he 
would break away from impurity if he could, and 
added " My God, I cannot " ; the woman who wrote 
that she would give up drugs if she could and said, 
" But, my God, I cannot " ; the young fellow who 



YOUR SINS 115 

stopped me on the street and made a similar con- 
fession — all these show that sin is bondage. Now 
go back to the text again and say — your sins ! 

I want to keep as close to the Scripture as pos- 
sible in my illustrations. With all my heart I 
want to help you. Let us finish this text. Your 
sins have hid His face from you that he will not 
hear. There are a great many people who say that 
it is hard for them to begin the Christian life. 
Probably there are a hundred people here now who 
are saying quite honestly that they would begin the 
Christian life if they understood fully about it. 
I need not waste five minutes trying to prove that 
it is the right thing to be a Christian. You were 
saying that there are difficulties in the way. I will 
tell you why. You have started wrong. You want 
to be a Christian, but all the time there is some- 
thing wrong in your life, some hidden sin, some- 
thing you have almost forgotten. You are groping 
for God and saying : " Oh, that I might find 
Him ! " You have heard me speak of Jesus night 
after night. I have told you that anybody who 
accepts Jesus will never come into condemnation, 
never stand before God at the great white throne 
of judgment. That is past forever. And you say : 
" Oh, that this might be true in my case." I will 
tell you where the trouble is. Your sins! They 
hide God's face. 

I throw out a challenge this evening to everyone 
in this building, especially to the old soldiers here. 



116 YOUK SINS 

If you will turn away from every sin, so far as you 
know it in your life, and faithfully accept Jesus 
Christ as your personal Saviour, I stand here to 
say that you will be a saved man or woman. I am 
willing to say that if your acceptance of Jesus 
Christ and your turning away from sin did not 
save you, I would renounce my own salvation if I 
could in your behalf. I long to see you come to 
Christ. You never can come to Him until you 
turn away from sin. 

Look at Jeremiah 5 : 25 — " Your iniquities have 
turned away these things, and your sins have with- 
holden good from you." Listen to that. "Your 
sins have withholden good from you." I am won- 
dering if some of you say : Why are you asking us 
to join the Pocket Testament League? Why do 
you want us to carry this little book with us? 
Some of you are saying: I have read that book 
and it does not interest me. I will tell you why. 
You have read it with some sin in your life that 
you would not give up, and sin has blinded your 
eyes. When you read God's Word with sin in your 
life the devil always makes it uninteresting. Sin 
withholds good things from you. It keeps you from 
appreciating Christ. 

One of our workers went down one of these 
aisles the other evening and stopped to speak to a 
woman. He was speaking to her about Jesus 
Christ, and the woman said : " Never again speak 
His name to me. I hate Him." I became a Chris- 



YOUR SINS 117 

tian when I was a boy, and I have been serving 
Jesus Christ all my life. I am not a fanatic. 1 
know life, and I want to say that Jesus Christ is 
the dearest friend I have ever had. There have 
been times when all the stars went out of the sky 
in my life and He has been near me. There have 
been times when my heartstrings were strained to 
snapping, and I have felt His loving arms around 
me. There have been times when I have carried 
my best and dearest to the grave and He stood near 
and comforted me. The only reason in the world 
that you do not accept my Saviour and come down 
this aisle and take my hand and say : " From to- 
night I choose Him," — the only reason I know of 
is your sins. Your sins! They have withholden 
good things from you and kept you back from the 
best. "No man in this city need tell me that he is 
satisfied in his heart without Christ. I know that 
he is not. You can gain the world and your heart 
will still ache* You can have all the wealth of the 
world and carry a broken heart. You can gain 
fame and die in misery. There is only one way to 
find peace. Turn away from your sins and take 
the Saviour. 

The last time I was with D. L. Moody was 
shortly before he died, in Pittsburgh, in the old 
First Presbyterian Church. We were holding 
meetings. He was too weak to take all the service, 
and I came to take part of it. He would preach 
and I would come forward and take the after meet- 



118 YOUR SINS 

ing. The last illustration I ever heard him use 
was this: He was on the battlefield in the Civil 
War, with the Christian Commission, and he came 
to a soldier who was all shot to pieces. They 
stopped long enough to straighten out his limbs, 
and moisten his lips with the water in his canteen. 
The touch of the water revived the boy and he 
opened his eyes. " Can I do anything for you ? " 
Moody inquired. " Chaplain," was the reply, " I 
think you could read t© me." " What shall I 
read ? " " Sir," said the soldier boy, " put your 
hand in my pocket and pull out my little Testa- 
ment." There was blood on it, and on his hand, 
too. He said to him : " Where shall I read for a 
time like this ? " And the boy answered : " The 
fourteenth chapter of John." " And so," said 
Moody, " I went down on my knees with the blood- 
marked Testament in my hand. I read twenty-six 
verses of the fourteenth chapter of John, and the 
dying soldier never opened his eyes. He was lying 
there breathing heavily and drifting out into eter- 
nity. But when I came to the twenty-seventh 
verse — i Peace I leave with you, my peace I give 
unto you/ the boy opened his eyes quickly and 
said : ' Chaplain, don't read any more. I have 
that peace.' Almost immediately his eyes closed 
and his heart became still." I saw the great evan- 
gelist lean over the church pulpit as he told this 
story, with tears running down his face. He knew, 



YOUR SINS 119 

as lie stretched his hands out to the great audience, 
that he himself was not far from the end. 

Some persons seem to think that it is only peace 
for the hour of death that comes to a Christian, 
but I know that it is peace for every day and every 
hour of every day. iSome of you have not got it. 
You old soldiers of the Grand Army of the Repub- 
lic, you are getting fewer in number. Mrs. Chap- 
man and I were in Washington, D. C, when you 
were having your grand review. Every time I 
passed an old soldier I wanted to salute him. It 
seems to me that you deserve the best. It grieves 
me as I look into your fine old faces to think that 
sin might withhold good things from you. 

Let me say another thing. Your sins have kept 
back deliverance in the hour of trial. All of you 
have had heartaches. You have had times when 
the shadows have fallen across your home. You 
have followed some loved one to the grave, and you 
have said : " My God ! I think my heart will 
break." You have come back from the cemetery 
and have stood alone by your fireside. What you 
needed was the consolation of the Saviour's pres- 
ence. It would make the last of life beautiful. It 
would make the beginning of life great. It would 
make the meridian of life marvellous — to have 
Him. Take Him ; Oh, take Him ! Your sins have 
withholden good things from you if they have kept 
you from Christ. They have robbed you of that 
which makes life truly worth while. 



120 YOUR SINS 

I was sitting in my study in Philadelphia one 
day when I heard a quick rap at the door. With- 
out rising, I said : " Come in." A gentleman 
opened the door and cried out : " Hurry across 
with me, please. Mother is dead." Then he went 
on : " We found her dead this morning. She was 
with us last night, apparently well. She sat with 
us as we sang the songs of the Church at family 
worship. She said good night with a smile. My 
mother always had a strange habit. She carried 
with her in her hand as she went to her room a 
little old-fashioned lamp. She would hold it in her 
hand and stand at the door, and, with a smile on 
her face, she would say — l Good night, good night ! 
I will see you in the morning.' She said it last 
night and I thought that she was sweeter than ever 
as the old-fashioned lamp lighted up her face. She 
climbed the stairway, and this morning we waited 
and she did not come. I went to her door and 
rapped, and there was no answer. Then I opened 
the door and she seemed to be sleeping. I walked 
over to her bedside, and mother was dead." And 
the great strong business man sat in the chair by 
my desk and dropped his face in his hands and 
cried as if his heart would break. Then suddenly 
he stood up and said : " But I will see her in the 
morning." 

I turn again to the Scripture. Here is a won- 
derful sentence, in Isaiah 1:18 — "Though your 
sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow." 



YOUR SINS 121 

When we were in Australia, a gentleman came to 
me and said : " Did you ever know that if you take 
a piece of red glass and look through it at a red 
object, the red object will become white." The next 
day was a beautiful summer morning. I took a 
piece of red glass and held it over a red flower. I 
looked through the red glass and the red flower was 
white. It seemed marvellous to me, but I know 
something more marvellous. It is this: To-night, 
if I could only persuade you to accept the invita- 
tion tov come to Christ with your sins, you would 
see something marvellous. Though your sins be 
like scarlet, God will look at them through the 
blood of Jesus Christ and they will be white. You 
old soldiers, come to Christ with your sins and let 
God make them white. I am a conservative old- 
fashioned Christian, but I can never say what I 
have just said without crying — Hallelujah, what a 
Saviour ! 

The other night, in Atlanta, I said in a meeting : 
If there is a poor, fallen girl in this building who 
has found her way in here, and has no one to help 
her, if she will lift up her hand and turn to God 
in penitence, He will save her through Christ. 
Away back in the audience a fallen girl from the 
streets who had drifted in, quick as a flash, put up 
her hand. A beautiful woman went to her and 
spoke to her. She took her to a house near by and 
led her to Christ. Though your sins be as scarlet, 
they shall be as white as snow. 



122 YOUR SINS 

I come to the close, but I must tell you a little 
about the cure. I Jobn 2 : 12 — " Your sins are 
forgiven." There is a difference between human 
forgiveness and divine forgiveness. One day a 
man came to one of our meetings. I bad never 
seen bim and be bad never seen me. He bated tbe 
truth for which I stood, and be began to talk about 
me. He went up and down the streets saying 
things derogatory to my character. ITen began to 
whisper them on the streets, and the man himself 
was gone, five hundred miles away. I sent for him 
and talked to him in a room in the hotel. I said 
to him : " Did you ever see me before ? " " Never," 
he said. " Are these things you have been saying 
about me true ? " I asked. " Xo, sir," was his 
reply. " Why did you say them ? " I asked. " Be- 
cause, sir, I am ashamed to say I hate the thmg3 
you have been preaching, and I thought that I 
could silence you." I had an officer of the law at 
hand. I could have had him arrested and tried 
and sent to prison. I walked across the floor and 
said : " I want to tell you something. I am going 
to forgive you freely. One of my children might 
hear this vile slander, but I will forgive you." His 
face became deathly white. " You don't mean it," 
he said. As he walked out of the room, he said: 
" Thank you, sir. You really are a Christian. 
Thank you." I did forgive him, but to this day I 
remember how my face flushed and my heart quick- 
ened, and my tears fell. I thought that I would 



YOUR SINS 123 

die when I imagined that people might think ill of 
me. I forgave him and remembered. That is 
human. But when God forgives, when I come with 
my sins and face them and turn away from them, 
when I say with all my heart, I will give them 
up — God forgives, and He forgets. Hallelujah! 
Hallelujah! 

A minister had preached a great sermon. In his 
youth he had broken almost every law of God but 
one. He had shattered his mother's heart, so he 
said. But he had found his Saviour, and now he 
was preaching His wonderful Gospel. When he 
finished his sermon, all over the audience people 
began to rise and come forward. His officers gath- 
ered around him and said : " That was the greatest 
appeal of your life." Then there came down the 
aisle of the church an old woman. Her hair was 
gray, but it was like a halo of glory. Her brow 
was furrowed, but it was like the touch of angels' 
fingers. When she reached the great strong min- 
ister, she looked at him a moment, and then put 
her hands behind his head and drew his face down 
until it was level with hers : " Jimmie, my pre- 
cious boy," she cried, " what made you tell it ? 
What made you tell it ? You never were bad like 
that." She had forgiven and forgotten. But I 
know something better than that. When I stand 
face to face with God, not a single sin I have ever 
committed will be mentioned. He has forgiven 
and forgotten. 



124 YOUR SINS 

Your sins can be blotted out. This is the chem- 
istry of the Gospel. Your debt can be paid. This 
is commercial. The stain can be taken away. 
There is a story about one of your governors thac 
has interested me. He was a Christian. There 
was a boy in the city of Philadelphia who was high 
in social life, but he had been guilty of a capital 
crime and was in prison. His friends did every- 
thing they could to save his life. But the gov- 
ernor said : " No." The boy's mother swooned in 
his office, and they carried her out. Then the gov- 
ernor said : " I know what I can do. I can go to 
Philadelphia and tell that boy how to die." It is 
on record that he went into the cell of the boy. 
The prisoner did not know him. There sat your 
governor with his open Bible, telling the con- 
demned boy how to die. The boy listened, and not 
knowing his visitor, he said : " Well, sir, if I must 
die, I am not afraid after this." Then the gov- 
ernor arose without revealing himself and said 
good-bye. The boy stood with his face against the 
bars, looking after the governor as he went down 
the corridor. When the warden came he said to 
him: "Warden, tell me who was the man in my 
cell a moment ago." And the warden answered: 
" Why, man, that was the governor." Then the 
prisoner, holding on to the bars of his cell, threw 
himself back at arms' length, and as he fell he 
said : " Oh, my God ! The governor in this cell 
and I never knew it! Why didn't you tell me? 



YOUR SINS 125 

If I had known, I would never have let him leave 
the cell until he had given me my pardon." He 
kept on saying : " The governor here and I never 
knew it." There is a greater than the governor 
here. I put my hands to my eyes and I can see 
Him. He is very near. Anyone of us can touch 
Him. Though your sins he as scarlet! Take 
Him! Take Him! 



XI 
WHAT MEN DO WITH THEIE SINS 

I HAVE no apology to make for speaking 
many times about sin. It is the world's 
great sore spot. I have this conviction, 
that if I can say any word that will lead men to 
hate sin, they will be forever grateful. I have a 
text of Scripture which will be found in Proverbs 
5 : 22 — " He shall be holden with the cords of his 
sin." This text brings before you a picture. You 
see a man bound with chains. Nevertheless the 
chains are invisible. They are the chains of his 
passions, his habits, his evil deeds. How easy it 
is to turn to God's Word and find a text like this. 
What a marvellous Book it is, any way we take it. 
If anybody in this audience has reached the con- 
clusion that the Bible is not an interesting Book, 
he has come to this conclusion for one of two rea- 
sons. Either that he has ceased to study it, or that 
there is some sin in his life that keeps him from 
appreciating the Bible. I do not know anything 
in the world that will so strengthen your mind, so 
help you in the building of character, so deliver 
you from the power of sin, as to keep this Bible 
close to you. I advise you to carry it with you, at 
least some portion of it, and when you have a bit 

126 



.WHAT MEN DO WITH THEIR SINS 127 

of spare time, take it out and read it. If we re- 
gard it only as literature, it is the very best the 
world has known. But we know that it is vastly 
more. 

A text like this one is very striking — u He shall 
be holden with the cords of his sin." Sin always 
has small beginnings. A friend of mine was stand- 
ing one day on the piazza of his house while it was 
storming. The property had been his father's, and he 
had spent his boyhood days on the estate. A terrific 
wind came with the storm, and from his place on 
the piazza he saw the finest tree on the place come 
down with a crash. Waiting until the storm was 
past, he went out over the lawn and found the 
secret of the fall of the tree. He remembered when 
he was a boy crossing the lawn one day with an 
axe in his hand and, carelessly swinging the axe, 
he had cut into the bark of the tree. Before the 
bark healed, water seeped in, which worked its way 
to the heart of the tree. For years it had been 
slowly decaying, and at length the end came. 
Every failure that comes into life through sin is 
a story of a small beginning. The progress is slow, 
but it is sure. There is a certain insect in India 
that has a sharp sting. The moment after the in- 
sect stings you, your eyes grow glassy, your lips 
become blue, your face white, and although you 
may have been in perfect health, the sting of this 
insect means certain death. When men drift away 
from God, their consciences become seared and they 



128 WHAT MEN DO WITH THEIR SINS 

lose their sensitiveness to sin. In earlier years 
they would have checked sin, but now they commit 
it with impunity. So it comes to pass that men 
are " holden with the cords of their sins." 

But what do men do with their sins ? To answer 
this question I turn to my Bible. In Genesis, the 
fourth chapter, I read about Cain and Abel in the 
field. When Cain struck the blow that killed his 
brother, and when the murderer was asked: 
" Where is Abel thy brother ? " he tried to evade 
the question by asking another question : " Am I 
my brother's keeper ? " There are thousands of 
men like Cain. Oh, yes, they believe in a manner 
the teachings of this Old Book. They know that 
" the wages of sin is death " ; that " God is not to 
be mocked " ; that " whatsoever a man sows, that 
shall he also reap." But they think that they are 
so clever that they will be an exception to the rule. 
They think that some time they will turn away 
from their sin and that God's law will forget all 
about it. But you cannot evade sin. 

I may have told you the story of a splendid 
policeman whose position is at the most congested 
center on Fifth avenue in New York. He was the 
master of the traffic. He did it so magnificently 
that prominent men on their way to business would 
ask their chauffeurs to slow up so they could greet 
him. Beautiful women often greeted him with a 
smile. He was on his way to promotion. He al- 
most reached one of the highest positions that a 



WHAT MEN DO WITH THEIR SINS 129 

policeman can occupy in New York. One day 
there came a message to him calling him to appear 
in the office of his superior. He went with fear 
and trembling. The moment he entered the office 
his conviction that something was wrong deepened, 
and when his superior turned to him with a 
strained look in his eye, saying : " Officer, I am 
sorry," he never allowed him to finish the sentence. 
He walked towards his superior and began to take 
off the star, the sign of his authority. He reached 
for the mace that he carried. Then he drew off 
his coat and laid it at the feet of his superior, and 
began to tell his story. He said : " I knew it 
would come. I did it thirteen years ago, sir, and 
for ten years I thought that I had escaped it. I 
buried it so deeply that I thought there could never 
be any resurrection of it. But for three years, 
since I knew that promotion was ahead of me, I 
have never been without fear that this would come." 
He backed out of the office, went to the lower room, 
and resigned his position. Nobody knows where he 
is to-day. He had sinned against God, against his 
wife, against society. He thought he could escape, 
but he found otherwise. I say to you all : " Be not 
deceived. God is not mocked." You cannot evade 
sin. 

Some men encourage sin. There is no more 
striking illustration of this than Judas Iscariot. 
When the ointment had been poured on Jesus, he 
said : " It might have been sold and the money 



130 WHAT MEN DO WITH THEIR SINS 

given to the poor." From that time he started on 
a downward way. It was because he was a thief 
that he said this, and step by step he got further 
away from Jesus, until at last he made his way 
into the presence of the enemies of Jesus and bar- 
tered for his Lord's death. In those last hours, 
when they sat all together in the little upper room, 
Jesus turned to him and said : " What thou 
doest, do quickly." Judas rose and passed out of 
the room. A Scotch poet has imagined that as 
Judas was leaving the room, he looked back. The 
Master saw him and raised His hand and beckoned 
to him as if He was saying : Come back ! That is 
not mere imagination. It is a perfect picture of 
Jesus. How could Judas ever have resisted that 
beckoning hand? Some men go deeper into sin. 
They encourage sin. 

There is, of course, a natural drift in men 
towards evil. When I take away my hand from 
the book I am holding, it drops to the floor. There 
is a law that pulls it down. So there is a law of 
moral gravitation, which pulls us down. Unless 
we resist it we shall sink to lower levels. Some 
men encourage sin by failing to resist it. What a 
lerrible end awaited Judas ! Burdened with his 
sin, he passed the rope around his neck and swung 
out over the abyss. " The wages of sin is death." 
This is the story of Judas Iscariot. But if you are 
encouraging your sin, I want you to keep in mind 



WHAT MEN DO WITH THEIR SINS 131 

the picture of Jesus beckoning to jou and calling 
you back. 

One day in Mr. Wanamaker's Sunday School in 
Philadelphia, an English minister was present and 
addressed the school. When he had finished the 
address, he sat beside me and told me a story, part 
of which I had heard before. It was the story of 
a young girl who had drifted into a life of sin and 
shame. Her mother was broken-hearted, and she 
came to this English minister and said : " My 
daughter has gone. Can you win her back to me ? " 
The minister said : " Bring me all the pictures you 
have of yourself," and she brought them. He 
placed them before him and dipped his pen in red 
ink and wrote at the bottom of each picture two 
words — Come hack! He took these to all the mis- 
sion stations and haunts of vice as well. Three 
months passed, and one night, as the girl was going 
into a place of sin, she suddenly lifted her eyes and 
saw the face, the first that had looked into hers 
with love. At first she could not read the words 
for her tears. At length she understood the two 
words that were written in red ink — Come back. 
Along the streets of London she went, out to the 
edge of the city, paused for a little while before a 
small house in the darkness, and then stole up to* 
the door, lifted the latch and drew it back. Once 
she started to turn away, but she came back and 
lifted the latch again. All at once the door yielded 
to her touch, and the moment the door was opened 



132 WHAT MEN DO WITH THEIR SINS 

two arms were around her neck and her mother's 
face was buried on her shoulder. Over and over 
again the prodigal girl heard her mother saying: 
" My dear, ever since you went away the door has 
been open. I have left it on the latch ever since 
you started away." Oh, if there is a sin in your 
life that you have been encouraging, to-night I lift 
before you a face purer than any mother's face, 
and I read beneath it these words, not in ink, but 
in blood : Come back ! Come back ! Though your 
sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow, 
though they be red like crimson, they shall be as 
wool. 

Again I ask, what do men do with their sins? 
Some men try to cover them like Achan. Do you 
remember the Old Testament story? God's an- 
cient people had moved up against the city of 
Jericho, and for seven days they had been march- 
ing around the city. On the seventh day they 
shouted and shouted, and the walls of the city fell 
down, and the city was taken. Then the same peo- 
ple went up to a little town called Ai, and there 
they met with defeat, because there was one man 
who was guilty of sin. That man had seen a 
Babylonish garment and a wedge of gold, and he 
had taken them to his tent and covered them over. 
Because Achan sinned, the people suffered defeat. 
Do you remember how it runs in the story ? I saw, 
I coveted, I took, I hid! I am afraid that there 
are people in this city who are covering their sins. 



WHAT MEN DO WITH THEIE SINS 133 

I am not here to hear confessions, unless it be that 
you could tell your story to me as a stranger better 
than to anyone else, and it might help you to do 
so. The other night, in Springfield, I had a letter 
from a gentleman who said : "I am prominent in 
this city. If you were to read my name, everybody 
in the audience would know me. My heart is 
broken," Then followed his story, which I will 
not dare to repeat. But what he told me in sub- 
stance was that for two years past he had been 
seeking some one into whose ears he could pour his 
story. There is great help ofttimes in confessing 
one's sin to some one whom you can trust. But 
there is one thing that you can always do with your 
sin. You can confess it to God. You can stop 
trying to cover it, and with God's help you can 
turn away from it. Then God Himself will cover 
your sin and blot it out forever. There is one 
hymn that we sing almost every night. It is my 
favorite hymn: 

" There is a fountain filled with blood, 
Drawn from Immanuel's veins; 
And sinners plunged beneath that flood 
Lose all their guilty stains.' ' 

No, you cannot cover sin yourself. To-night, 
I make an earnest appeal to you to confess your 
sin to God and ask Him to help you to turn away 
from your sin. 

I come to the close of my message. There is no 
use trying to cover sin. Acknowledge it to God. 



134 WHAT MEN DO WITH THEIR SINS 

David said : " I acknowledge my transgressions 
and my sin is ever before me." Do you know I 
think that David's sin was one of the worst in the 
Bible, but David did not go on. He acknowledged 
his sin. Listen to me, men. Listen to me, women, 
and young people. When we talk about acknowl- 
edging sin, this means all sin. You cannot start 
and then stop, holding on to one sin. You cannot 
say : " I am determined to drop one sin at a time 
and after a while to get into the Kingdom." The 
only way to escape is to acknowledge all sin and 
turn from all siija<f Mr. Alexander's secretary, in 
traveling across the Pacific some time ago, had a 
conversation with a medical man of authority, who 
told him this story: A certain scientist in Aus- 
tralia has been for years experimenting with the 
venom of snakes, in the endeavor to discover an 
effective antidote. He kept in a deep pit on his 
property in Sidney, Australia, a number of snakes 
from which he extracted venom from time to time. 
Finally, he discovered an antidote which proved to 
be effective. With the recipe in his possession, he 
sailed for India, hoping to sell his remedy to the 
Indian Government. He believed that it would 
make him worth millions. Now, listen. One day 
he was demonstrating the power of his antidote be- 
fore a number of scientific and professional men 
in India. For the purpose, he took a small but 
very deadly serpent, and allowed it to sting him 
several times on the wrist. Then very quickly he 



WHAT MEN DO WITH THEIR SINS 135 

applied the antidote. Everything seemed all right, 
and the representatives of the Government said: 
" This recipe is worth a fortune." Full of joy, he 
went away to luncheon with some of the scientists. 
At luncheon he suddenly realized that the venom 
of the serpent was working in his own veins. In a 
short time he was dead. He thought that the ser- 
pent had stung him only three times. He had 
treated three stings and missed a fourth. This 
evening I stand here and say to you as a minister 
of the gospel, that there is only one sure cure, only 
one way of escape. Acknowledge all your sins. 
Turn away from all your sins. 

How I wish that I could take you by the hand, 
men and women, and speak to your very heart. It 
does not make any difference what your sin is. 
Turn away from it, and God will cover it up with 
the sacrifice of His Son. Listen to me. I am tell- 
ing you the truth of the gospel. Will you ac- 
cept it % 

You can repent of your sin. What is repent- 
ance ? I remember once speaking to an audience 
in New York, and I asked the people to tell me 
their idea of repentance. One man said : " Re- 
pentance is sorrow for sin." Why, it is not that 
at all. If that were repentance, then everybody 
here that has ever sinned has repented, for every- 
body is sorry for sin. Another man said : " Re^- 
pentance is remorse for sin." No, it is not that. 
If repentance is remorse, then everybody in this 



136 .WHAT MEN DO WITH THEIR SINS 

building has repented. One never sins without re- 
morse. What is repentance ? I will tell you. Re- 
pentance is being so sorry for your sin that with 
God's help you turn away from it immediately and 
give it up. 

I would give anything I own to win you to 
Christ. I would gladly change my methods, if 
that would win you. I would ask God to put more 
pathos into my voice, if that would bring you to 
Christ. Come ! Come ! God wants you. If you 
have sinned, He still loves you dearly. Don't go 
on sinning against His love. There is a story of 
a boy up near New York, who was arrested for 
murder. They took him to the prison and sent im- 
mediately for his mother. She came hurrying to 
her boy, and they allowed her to go into the cell 
alone with him. As she sat beside him with her 
arms around him, she said : " Tell your mother. 
Did you do it ? " He was just about to confess 
that he had done it, when he caught a look on her 
face, and he said : " Mother, I didn't do it." She 
brushed away her tears and started out of the cell. 
Friends came to see her, and she said : " It is very 
kind of you to sympathize with me, but my Jim 
did not do it. He never did it." The trial came 
on. The judge and the prosecuting attorney said 
that if the prisoner would change his plea and 
acknowledge his guilt, they would take into ac- 
count his youth and his family and lighten his sen- 
tence. The old mother spoke up and said : " It 



WHAT MEN DO WITH THEIR SINS 137 

is very kind of you to do that, Judge, but my boy 
Jim never did it. He told me that he never did 
it." The trial went on, and they convicted him 
and sentenced him to die. As the sentence was 
about to be carried out, the chaplain went to his cell 
and said : " Jim, tell me. Did you do it ? You 
are almost in eternity. Did you do it ? " The boy 
looked at him in a frightened way. " Chaplain, I 
did it. Go and tell mother." The chaplain hur- 
ried away to her house where she sat with her face 
in her hands. He spoke to her, but she never lifted 
her head. He said : " Mother, Jim did it. He 
says that he did it." She gave one great shudder. 
Then rising from the chair and putting her hand 
on the table, she said : " Chaplain, go back as 
quickly as you came and tell him that with all my 
heart I love him. I love him ! " 

I stand here to tell you that God in His infinite 
mercy loves you. If you will turn from your sin, 
He will save you. I cannot say anything more to 
you. To-day, if you will hear His voice, harden 
not your heart. Take the Saviour to-day! 



XII 

"WHAT WILT THOU SAY?" 

I AM calling jour attention to a passage of 
Scripture which is found in Jeremiah 
13:21— "What wilt thou say when he 
shall punish thee ? " Until I read this verse in 
the light of the marginal reference, I did not un- 
derstand it. It seemed to me to be so out of har- 
mony with all that I have learned of God. It may 
be so with you also. There may be an instinctive 
shrinking from this text. Nevertheless, I beg you 
to hear me patiently. 

My message for the most part was suggested to 
me by an experience in ISTew York. I was invited 
to sit one day with one of the judges of the court. 
It was a very special day. The judge was to sen- 
tence a number of prisoners, some of them for 
gross crimes, and others for minor offenses. He 
was not only a distinguished jurist, but a very 
great Christian as well. He said to me : " I have 
an idea that perhaps you will learn something to- 
day that will be of value to you and your hearers." 
And, truly, as I sat beside him I learned a great 
deal. I learned something, too, about this text of 
mine : " What wilt thou say when He shall punish 

thee?" 

138 



"WHAT WILT THOU SAY?" 139 

You remember that Jeremiah is called the weep- 
ing prophet. If you understood sin as Jeremiah 
understood it, perhaps you would weep too. I sup- 
pose that no minister would covet the title of weep- 
ing minister. Tears are sometimes thought to be 
an evidence of weakness, but anyone who knows the 
sinfulness of sin, how it is blighting lives and 
breaking hearts, is warranted in weeping. I can 
understand how it is that the prophet cried out: 
" Oh, that my head were waters and that mine eyes 
were a fountain of tears, that I might weep for the 
slain of the daughter of my people." When you 
study this Old Testament prophet, you find, too, 
that he is seeking to arouse the people by repeated 
references to judgment. He says that it shall be 
a day of wrath. When you think of God's wrath, 
you must think of His nature. Men are filled with 
wrath because of envy or weakness or sin, but 
God's wrath never comes from any such source. 
Y T et sin is the occasion of divine wrath, so Jere- 
miah says that the day of judgment will be a day 
of the pouring out of vials on the earth. " It is a 
day," he says, " when men shall try to flee from 
God and shall be as drunken men. The father 
shall turn against his son, and the son against his 
father, and when men try to escape, it shall be a 
slippery path that they travel, and the way of es- 
cape shall be impossible." 

There are two views to take of God. One is that 
God is a consuming fire, and the other is that God 



140 "WHAT WILT THOU SAY?" 

is love. God is a consuming fire to us when we 
turn our backs upon Him, trample His love be- 
neath our feet, spurn His mercy, and resist the 
power of His Holy Spirit. When these things are 
done, then God is a consuming fire. But the mo- 
ment you turn to Christ and receive Him as a 
Saviour, and accept pardon at His hands, from 
that moment God becomes matchless love. So I 
feel like stopping for a moment to ask the question 
of the text: What wilt thou say when He shall 
punish thee? I want to make it plain to sincere 
Christian believers that they need have no fear of 
final judgment. We shall all stand at the judg- 
ment bar, but they who have accepted Christ shall 
have nothing to fear. You remember what the 
Apostle Paul says : " There is therefore now no 
condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus." 
Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your Saviour? 
Do you believe that He died for you on Calvary? 
Well, if He died, what was the purpose of His 
death? He took your place under the law. He 
died in your stead. He died that you might live. 
So do you not see that it would be unfair and un- 
just for God to accept Jesus Christ as my substi- 
tute, answering every demand of the law, and then 
let me stand trembling at the judgment bar. This 
text is not for the man who has accepted Jesus 
Christ. What wilt thou say when He shall punish 
thee? It is not my nature to cry out concerning 
God's wrath. I prefer to speak of His love. I 



"WHAT WILT THOU SAY?" 141 

prefer to win men with, the thought of the mercy 
of God in Christ. But the preaching of love seems 
sometimes to fail. Love sometimes seems power- 
less. Prayer sometimes seems to be in vain. To- 
night I speak of wrath and punishment. Some 
have long resisted Him. My text is for you — ■ 
What wilt thou say when He shall punish thee ? 

One day I counted the number of chapters in 
the Bible. If I remember correctly, there are 
1,189. Three chapters tell us whence we came. 
1,186 chapters tell us whither we are going, and 
seek to make us ready. There are only two ways 
of going out of this world. You may go out with 
faith, having found Jesus Christ and a life of trust. 
Then all is well. Your loved ones gather about 
you and witness your departure. They watch your 
face whiten and your eyes grow dim. You are safe 
in the Lord's keeping. As we passed out of New 
York harbor on our way around the world we 
heard the voices of our loved ones plainly, then 
not quite so plainly. Presently only half their sen- 
tences reached us. At length we heard no words at 
all, but we saw their waving hands and caught the 
white messages of their handkerchiefs. And so it 
will be with you. Quietly and peacefully you will 
close your eyes and go home. This is well. 

The other way of going out of the world is to 
go with no Saviour to help you. !No hope to sus- 
tain you, no promises on which to rest. The future 
will be dark to you and full of despair, and in your 



142 "WHAT WILT THOU SAY?" 

heart you will be saying: If I only had! If I 
only had ! Answer me ! What wilt thou say when 
He shall punish thee? Have you sometimes seen 
the clouds heavy in the morning? Every moment 
it looked as if rain would come. Suddenly, just 
about as the day was dying and the wind was 
hushed to a whisper, the clouds broke, the thunder 
rolled, and the lightning flashed. So it will be with 
men who continually reject Jesus Christ. God in 
His mercy is holding back the judgment, but some 
day, and it may be soon, it will come. What wilt 
thou say when He shall punish thee ? A miner in 
the Rocky Mountains, the owner of a big mine, 
struck a rich lead one day. At the beginning of 
the day it looked quite favorable, and by the close 
of the day it was marvellously rich. The follow- 
ing day he sent an invitation to all his miner 
friends to come and rejoice with him. So they 
came and sat around his table. He was from New 
England, and his friends had sent him from his 
old home a fine barrel of New England apples. He 
said to his friends, some of whom were Yale and 
Harvard men: "Friends, we are going to have 
an old time treat." Turning to one of his servants, 
he said : " Go down in the cellar and bring up the 
apples." The servant came back laden with the 
fruit. He went down with a lighted candle and 
came back without it. The miner said to him: 
" Where did you leave the light ? " " Oh," he said, 
" I left it in the cellar on a barrel of sand." With- 



"WHAT WILT THOU SAY?" 143 

out showing the least excitement, the miner walked 
carelessly to the door. When he was out of sight 
of his friends, he gave a sudden spring and reached 
the candle in the cellar. It was flickering on a bar- 
rel of blasting powder. He knew that in a moment 
the foundations of the mountain would shake. 
Catching up the light, he was just in time to save 
his own life and the lives of his friends. If I 
could speak to-night as God would have me speak, 
if I could perfectly portray the teachings of this 
Book, if I could help you to feel that your resist- 
ance of God's love and of the gospel of His Son 
is dangerous ! To-day may be your last day, to- 
morrow may be Eternity. What wilt thou say 
when He shall punish thee? 

The word punish is explained in the margin. 
The text should read somewhat in this way: What 
wilt thou say when He shall visit thee ? This verse 
is a forerunner of that impressive message in the 
New Testament : " Be not deceived. God is not 
mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall 
he also reap." Do you not see? Can you not un- 
derstand? The prophet is saying that when the 
last restraining influence is removed, when the last 
prayer has been refused, when the last invitation 
has been spurned, the question then is: What wilt 
thou say when He shall visit thee? I spoke of 
sitting by the judge on the bench and watching the 
prisoners pass in front of him to receive their sen- 
tences. My mind went to this text. One of the 



144 "WHAT WILT THOU SAY?" 

things I learned that day has to do with youth. 
The judge said to me: " Forty- two per cent of all 
the sentences are upon boys, youths from sixteen to 
twenty-one." No doubt it is so throughout the en- 
tire country. And, he added : " Not in five years 
have I passed a sentence upon a boy who has been 
faithful in the Sunday School. When they have 
grown up and left it, and become too big for it in 
their own estimation, then sometimes they come be- 
fore me, but not if they have been faithful." Then 
he said this impressive thing to me : "As a matter 
of fact we have determined the sentences before 
the prisoners appear. You see that man coming 
in. I am going to tell him what his sentence is. 
It was decided last night." I said to him : " Why, 
judge, that is like the Scripture. ' He that be- 
lieveth not is condemned already because he hath 
not believed.' " Do you see how this is ? Con- 
demned already. But the marvellous thing about 
God's judgment is that it is reversed when we put 
our faith in His Son. Judgment is taken away 
if we lift our eyes to Jesus. Oh, how plain it is ! 

Two men came before the judge charged with 
crimes of equal seriousness. One received his sen- 
tence immediately, and the other was given another 
chance. I said: "Why?" "Well," said the 
judge, " the first one had no one to speak for him. 
The second one had another judge to speak for 
him. A merchant also spoke for him. They have 
presented extenuating circumstances." I said: 



"WHAT WILT THOU SAY?" 145 

How like the Saviour again. How like God's judg- 
ment. Here I am, weighed down with my sin, con- 
demned because I have not believed and taken my 
stand for Christ. Instantly Jesus Christ, my 
Saviour, steps forward to take his place at my 
side. He bares His wounded side and stretches 
out His nail-marked hands and I go free. The 
Redeemer speaks for me. What wilt thou say 
when He shall visit thee? 

I have been turning over the pages of the New 
Testament to see what men have said in judgment. 
■Some have tried to justify themselves. " Lord, 
have we not prophesied in Thy name ? " Did we 
not do good deeds ? Were we not kind and merci- 
ful? Did we not go to church occasionally? And 
I think I hear the Master saying this : " Step into 
the balances and be weighed. Let all the motives 
back of your services be tested." Could you stand 
this ? If you ask me whether I can stand it, I an- 
swer promptly: Not for a moment. But when I 
step in with all my weaknesses, and Christ steps in 
with me with all His strength, then there is all the 
difference in the world. Faith in Jesus Christ 
makes a difference. I turn again to my Bible, and 
I read that some men cry out when it is too late: 
" What have I done ? " You had your opportunity, 
but you did not take it. The door was open for 
you, but you did not go in. You knew your duty, 
but you did not do it. You heard the warning and 
you did not heed it. You resisted the call, and the 



U6 "WHAT WILT THOU BAY?' 1 

door was shut. Too late! Too late! Some men 
Trill stand in terror when God visits them. It will 
he as it is described in Revelation — " Eocks and 
hills fall on us and hide us from His face."' Only 
there will he no rocks to hide you in the last judg- 
ment, and no hills to cover you. In the judgment 
a man will stand face to face with God. So many 
prayers, so many sermons, so many strivings, so 
many mothers' tears, so many pleadings of a father, 
— they will go rushing past you in memory on the 
day of judgment, and you will he speechless. I 
plead with you to-night to turn to Christ. There 
can never he a better time than this. God loves 
yon, and He is ready to save you. 

A southern gentleman sent his son to a northern 
university. Time went by, and one day he came 
back again with his diploma, but, alas, he came as 
an inebriate. When his mother kissed him, she 
caught the smell of drink, and it broke her heart. 
In two weeks she died. The father did all he could 
for his boy. He loved him dearly. It seemed al- 
most unbelievable to his neighbours that he could 
go on loving a son like that. One morning the 
father drove to town, and as he stepped out of his 
carriage the drunken son came forward and struck 
him. The old man threw his hands up to his head. 
They put him in his carriage, and sent him home. 
For a moment he sat in the house, and then he rose 
and walked out of the house and crossed the 
grounds to a grave. There he got on his knees, and 



"WHAT WILT THOU SAY?" 147 

burying his face in his hands he cried aloud. They 
say that the neighbours heard him on the next 
place. His heart broke there. When the boy came, 
the old man said to him : " You will have to go 
away. You dishonoured my name, and I still loved 
you. You killed your mother, and still I loved you. 
But this morning you struck me, and you will have 
to go away." A friend of mine who knew the cir- 
cumstances told me that the boy turned away and 
staggered down the road. He became a wanderer 
in the world. But God is a better father than that. 
To-night He is saying to you: You have spurned 
my love and still I love you. You have resisted 
my Son, but I have not taken my love away from 
you. You have said " no " a thousand times to my 
gracious invitations, but still I love you. I love 
you! He pleads with you to turn. To-night you 
can do it, this very minute. 



XIII 
A NEGLECTED TRUTH 

MY text is very familiar, although it 
speaks of a much, neglected truth — 
John 3 : 7 — " Ye must be born again." 
If your Bible is open before you, you will notice 
that the marginal reading says : " Ye must be born 
from above." Salvation, is not a human effort. I 
am saved, not because I struggle nor because I at- 
tempt to do good. Neither do I become a Chris- 
tian by giving generously of my means. These 
things are all worthy, but they do not bring salva- 
tion. We must be born again. Jesus said this, and 
Jesus knew. What a marvellous provision for 
salvation. It goes to the root of things. People 
sometimes say: I wish I could begin life all over 
again. I wish I could take the experience of past 
years, all that I learned in college, all that I have 
learned in the school of adversity, and then start 
life all over. Just this you may do if you are not 
yet a Christian and will accept the teaching of 
God's Word. Jesus had in mind the starting of 
life all over again when He said, you must be born 
again. 

There are few chapters in the Bible with which 
we are so familiar as the third chapter of the Go$- 

148 



A NEGLECTED TRUTH 149 

pel of John. You know it contains the great state- 
ment of the sixteenth verse, which one of the re- 
formers said was the gospel in a nutshell. If we 
should lose the rest of the Bihle and had only this 
verse left, we would know God's love and would un- 
derstand something about the death of Jesus. It 
was in this same conversation with Nicodemus that 
Jesus said : "Ye must be born again." I confess 
that there is no doctrine in the Scripture which I 
find so difficult to make people understand as this 
subject of regeneration. Nevertheless, it is a doc- 
trine that can be easily illustrated. 

Some years ago we were holding a meeting not 
far from my home in 2sTew York State. There was 
an old man in the village who for years had never 
darkened the doors of the church. He was passion- 
ately fond of music. He heard about the singing, 
and with a hungry heart he made his way to the 
place of worship. When he saw the crowds he 
started to go back to his haunts of sin, but the old 
hunger for music checked him and he staggered 
back to the door. Despair had gripped him. His 
wife was dead, and his children were in the poor- 
house. With great hesitation he pushed the door 
open. The only vacant seat in the building was 
away at the front. Someone led the old man to that 
seat. I do not know that he heard anything of my 
sermon, but he was all attention to the singing. 
When the appeal came, his hand was instantly 
lifted. When I invited the people to come to the 



150 A NEGLECTED TRUTH 

inquiry room, he was the first to respond. He was 
on his knees when I entered. I laid my hand on his 
gray head, and said to him : " Mr. Eirth, you may 
take Jesus Christ to-night if you will, and if you 
take Him, He will change your life." The old man 
hesitated a moment, dropped his head a little lower, 
and I heard him say: " God be merciful to me a 
sinner." He rose to his feet a changed man. To 
the day of his death, fifteen years afterwards, he 
served his Master faithfully. Only once was he 
tempted to drink. Crossing a bridge one day, the 
temptation came to him. He fairly ran to his 
home, called out to God for help, and escaped 
temptation. They made him a church official in the 
church where he was converted. He stood up be- 
fore a large audience and testified that God had 
taken away the appetite for drink and had given 
him a new name and a new nature. I give this as 
an illustration of my text. I am not discouraged 
when men tell me that they are sinful men, for I 
know that God can make them over and give them 
a new start. It is because I believe this that I 
bring you this text — " Ye must be born again." 

People often say to me that they are troubled by 
perplexing questions. I talked last night to two 
intelligent men, both of them honestly interested 
and desirous of becoming Christians, but I found 
them sorely troubled by some questions. I said to 
them: No man's faith has ever been increased if 
he just sat and waited. No man has ever come to 



A NEGLEGTED TRUTH 151 

know Christ as a Saviour unless he has started for- 
ward. The mysteries of the Bible are hard things 
to understand. The wonderful doctrine of atone- 
ment ! Things like these will clear up the moment 
you start and turn your face towards God and move 
in the line of His teaching. Some years ago a man 
came to Mr. Moody with a long list of questions. 
They seemed serious questions to him, although 
some of them were not important. He said : " Mr. 
Moody, if you will answer these questions, I will 
become a Christian." Mr. Moody, who knew him, 
said: "See here, I will make you a proposition. 
If you will give your heart sincerely to Jesus Christ 
to-nigjht and accept Him as your Saviour, come to- 
morrow morning and I will answer every question 
you have propounded." That night the man be- 
came a Christian. The following morning he came 
to Mr. Moody, and, without waiting, he said: 
" Mr. Moody, this is the most remarkable thing I 
have ever heard of. You do not need to answer 
my questions. Every question that troubled me last 
night is plain this morning." Let anyone start 
toward Jesus Christ with a sincere faith, and the 
dark things will begin to grow light. Sins that 
have bound will begin to snap. Passions that have 
hindered you will be overpowered. Come to Jesus ! 
" Ye must be born again." 

If you will turn to this chapter again, you will 
see what Jesus says — " Except a man be born of 
water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the 



152 A NEGLECTED TRUTH 

Kingdom of God." I am not at all clear in my 
own mind that the reference here is to the water of 
baptism. Well, you ask me naturally, what does 
it mean ? Of course, you need not accept this state- 
ment of mine, but it seems to me that when Jesus 
was speaking to this man who had had an Old 
Testament training, he must have spoken of water 
as it is spoken of in the Old Testament, as an em- 
blem or symbol of the Word of God. So it is as if 
He said to ISTicodemus : " Except a man be born 
of the Word and of the Spirit." This, too, is what 
the Apostle Peter says : " Being born again not of 
corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the Word 
of God which liveth and abideth forever." I hold 
this Book before you. It is God's Word. It is the 
seed of life. If you would be saved, just take this 
Word into your heart and hold it there. There are 
some things you may be unable to explain, but hold 
it in your heart. There may be mysteries here, but 
stand upon it just the same and God's Word will do 
its work. You will be born again. 

I do not expect much of the man who professes 
to be a Christian and does not take his stand upon 
the sure Word of God, and for this reason: If he 
stands on emotion, emotion will pass. If he stands 
on feelings, feelings may change. If he should 
stand by the singing of this great choir, the choir 
will soon be a memory. But if he stands on this 
Book, believing its promises and accepting its faith, 



A NEGLECTED 1RUTH 153 

heaven and earth may pass away, but this Word 
will never pass away. 

Some years ago there came to our meetings a 
man who afterwards became a bishop. I was ask- 
ing the people to say how they had become Chris- 
tians, and he gave his experience. Said he : "I 
was reared in a family, every member of which was 
a perfect battery of emotion. I was not. We never 
had a revival that they did not call me to the altar, 
but I never quite found myself in sympathy with it. 
I entered college, still not a Christian. One day 
I was seated under a tree on the campus, preparing 
a New Testament lesson. It was John, the third 
chapter. I came to the sixteenth verse, and when I 
read it, it seemed new. I rose to my feet, opened 
my little Testament again, and read it over once 
more. ' For Cod so loved the world/ I said, that 
is big enough for me. ' That He gave His only 
begotten Son.' That is provision enough for me. 
' That whosoever believeth in Him.' Surely that is 
definite enough for me. ' Should not perish, but 
have everlasting life.' That is sure enough for 
me." And, said the man who afterwards became a 
bishop : " I took my little Testament in my hand 
and held it above my head, and solemnly I said these 
words : ' Oh, God, standing on this campus to-day, 
I accept this Word which Thou hast spoken. I will 
hold to it, so long as I live. When I die, I will take 
it to the judgment with me, and if I am not saved 
it will go hard with Thy Book.' And suddenly my 



154 A NEGLECTED EKUTH 

tears were running down and I was crying as if my 
heart would break. I rushed into the building to 
tell my friends that I was saved." Then he added : 
" I have been a perfect battery of emotion myself 
ever since." 

I am trying to make all this plain this evening. 
I am so anxious to have everyone understand. This 
is a foundation principle : " Ye must be born 
again." " Except a man be born of water and of 
the Spirit." What does this mean? The Spirit 
of God is in this world, revealing Jesus Christ, 
making Him plain to men, making His teachings 
quick and powerful. I know quite well that some 
men are far more eloquent than I. I know that 
many have deeper scholarship than I, but I hope 
that no man can surpass me in loyalty to Jesus 
Christ. When I hold Him up before you this even- 
ing, and your hearts are stirred and your tears 
start, and you move forward, all this is an illustra- 
tion of my text. The Spirit of God is at work! 
He takes the hymns, He uses the incidents and the 
illustrations, He brings to memory your mother's 
prayers, He is here, and all you need to do is to 
surrender to God. 

I was preaching in New York one time, and I 
saw a splendid man move forward at one of our 
meetings and confess Christ. I went to my home 
with a feeling of satisfaction because I believed 
that I had been used of God to win a great soul to 
Christ. The following day was a day of prayer. 



A NEGLECTED TRUTH 155 

After I had preached my sermon, as the people 
were leaving, down the aisle came my man of the 
night before. He held a little boy in his arms. 
The child's face was white and thin. He carried a 
little pair of crutches. I could see the little fel- 
low's leg swinging against his father's side. The 
father put the little fellow down gently on the plat- 
form, and walked over to me. " I am going to in- 
troduce you to my little Joe," he said. Then in an 
undertone he added : " Joe cannot stay with us 
long." He did not need to tell me that. The little 
fellow had crossed a street in New York and had 
been struck by a truck. Tuberculosis of the hip 
joint followed. As his father brought the little fel- 
low forward, I saw the perfect love of his heart for 
the child. Is there anything that can make a 
father's face quite so beautiful, is there anything 
that can make his arms quite so gentle, as a little 
lame child that he calls his own ? I took the boy'3 
hand. I can almost feel it still. His father said: 
" This is little Joe. He was the means of my con- 
version." I remember the feeling of disappoint- 
ment that entered my heart. I thought that I had 
been instrumental in his conversion. The father 
went on : " Every night my little boy has been say- 
ing to his mother : ( You take father and I will 
stay at home and pray,' and every night when we 
came home I would hear the thud, thud of his little 
crutches on the hall floor. Then the door would 
swing open and he would spring into my arms and 



156 A NEGLECTED TRUTH 

say : ' Father, did you come ? ' But last night 
when I put my latchkey into the door I heard him 
coming; and when he sprang into my arms, he 
never asked me at all ; he just buried his little white 
face in my neck and began to cry out : c Oh, father, 
you came ! You came ! I knew you would.' " 

And this is what the text means. The Spirit of 
God takes a memory, a face, a lock of hair ; it takes 
a baby's smile, or a mother's death; it takes this 
marvellous Word. It takes the sound of preaching. 
It takes the testimony of some sincere Christian. 
" Ye must be born again." We cannot always trace 
the influence, or mark out the way. The Spirit has 
many ways of touching human hearts. 

How plain God's Word is ! The smitten Israel- 
ites in the wilderness looked on the brazen serpent. 
Some saw plainly, no doubt; others saw dimly. 
Some could hardly see at all, but they turned their 
eyes, all of them, towards the uplifted serpent, and 
they were all healed. You do not need to com© to 
Jesus as I came. I came to Him quietly. You 
may come to Him with a shout or a sob. You may 
come with powerful emotion, or you may come with 
a still heart, but you need to come. To-night, if I 
can persuade you to come right now where you are 
sitting, you may know at once what it means to be 
born again. Oh, if I could persuade you! How 
can you stay back ? 

A young girl came down the aisle in another city. 
One of the ministers said : " It cannot be. Yes, it 



A NEGLECTED TRUTH 157 

is. She is the daughter of the most prominent 
judge of this city." She was there but a moment, 
and when I looked again she was gone. The min- 
ister was greatly concerned. He thought that some 
worker had offended her, but she was still in the 
building. She had gone straight to her father, 
thrown her arms around his neck, put her face 
against his, and sobbed out her words. The minis- 
ter found her there, and heard her saying: " Father, 
I cannot stay there without you. I cannot stay 
there without you." The distinguished man rose, 
walked down the aisle, and took his seat at the 
front. I want you to do that. Your mother has 
come. Your wife has come. Your child has come. 
Why do you not come to-night ? How can you stay 
away? How can you resist Him? How can you 
shut your eyes to Christ ? " Greater love hath no 
man than this, that a man lay down his life for his 
friends. " But God commendeth His love toward 
us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died 
for us." How can you spurn Him ? 



XIV 
"IS IT NOTHING TO YOU?" 

I TURN to an Old Testament book for my 
text, Lamentations 1 : 12 — " Is it nothing 
to you, all ye that pass by?" My subject 
is Indifference. 

Jerusalem was beautiful for situation. In the 
day of its glory it was the joy of the whole earth, 
yet at the time of the text it was in desolation and 
despair. For some unaccountable reason the people 
were indifferent. Temples and walls and houses 
were down. Yet as they passed along the highways, 
there were some who had a sneer upon their faces. 
They even cast stones at the ruins. So Jeremiah, 
who has been called the weeping prophet, realizing 
the condition of the people, spoke to them in the 
words of the text — " Is it nothing to you, all ye 
that pass by ? " 

Really, it is hard to understand indifference. 
Especially is it difficult to understand indifference 
to Christ, and indifference to the spiritual interests 
of others. A little while ago, when one section of 
our country was covered with floods, an appeal was 
made in Xew York for funds. In a single morning 
thousands and tens of thousands of dollars were 
contributed. This we can understand. I remem- 
ber when we were going around the world, and were 

158 



"IS IT NOTHING TO YOU?" 159 

in a beautiful harbour, I was gazing one day at the 
bills and the sky, when I saw some people reading 
a newspaper. I went over to them carelessly, and 
in great headlines, larger than this book in my 
hands, I read a sentence announcing the sinking of 
the Titanic. Faces were white. Some men grew 
sick. I myself thought that I would faint, for 
some of my friends were on the ship. All over the 
world there was a wave of sympathy. Everywhere 
interest was quickened. Funds were quickly forth- 
coming for those who needed help. Is it not 
strange that in this city there are thousands of men 
and women without Christ, and we who are Chris- 
tians are not much concerned about them ? If they 
should die they would be hopeless. If they should 
go out into eternity this evening, their blood would 
be on our heads and hands. Is it not strange that 
we sit with folded arms and sealed lips? I think 
I can forgive a minister almost anything. I could 
forgive him if he were without culture or great in- 
tellectual ability. I know I could forgive him if 
he were without eloquence. But I cannot forgive 
a minister who is not on fire with a passion for 
souls. I am appealing not only to you who stand 
in the pulpit, but to you who are in the pews also. 
There is only one thing needed here now. We have 
a splendid union of ministers and churches. The 
thinking people of the city are behind these meet- 
ings. If I could be assured this evening that you 
who are believers would go back to your homes and 



160 "IS IT NOTHING TO YOU?" 

fall upon your knees and never rise until you had 
placed yourselves at God's disposal, then I should 
prophesy one of the most wonderful miracles of 
grace I have ever seen. 

So I am preaching to you to-night on indiffer- 
ence. Is it nothing to you that men are in danger ? 
Is it nothing to you that the fields are white with 
the harvest i Is it nothing to you that a thousand 
people could be brought to Christ in a week? Is 
it nothing to you that to-morrow may be the begin- 
ning of eternity ? 

I want to speak very frankly. In the light of the 
text I ask first of all : How can you be indifferent 
to God ? I speak first of God. How can you be 
indifferent to Him when you have His Word ? Do 
you really believe the Bible ? Tell me honestly, do 
you believe the Bible \ Well, if you do, tell me what 
you think of this : " He that believeth not is con- 
demned already." Or what do you think of this : 
" It is appointed unto men once to die and after 
this the judgment." Or what do you think about 
this : " I saw a great white throne, and Him that 
sat upon it, from whose face the heaven and earth 
fled away and the books were opened." I believe 
that if I could bring you face to face with the 
teachings of God's Word, you would go forth to 
shake this city for Him. " Is it nothing to you, 
all ye that pass by ? " Do you feel thai God is so 
merciful that He is going to let you shirk your re- 
sponsibility; that He is going to permit you to be 



"IS IT NOTHING TO YOU?" 161 

indifferent to your children and unmindful of the 
spiritual condition of your friends ? Listen to the 
words of Jesus, when He commands you to go into 
the fields that are white to the harvest. " Is it 
nothing to you, all ye that pass by ? " Do you 
imagine that while there is a responsibility upon 
me to preach and upon your ministers to preach 
and work, — do you imagine that you yourself are 
free? Can you find a verse of Scripture to stand 
on to justify you in this faith ? There is as much 
obligation on me as on you, on you as on your min- 
isters, and Sunday School teachers. When a spirit 
of concern takes possession of us, such concern as 
will drive sleep from our eyes and send us after 
our friends, then we shall see wonderful things. 

Is it nothing to you that in this city five hundred 
wait for some man's tears, some man's hand, some 
man's invitation. Well, you think that there is 
time enough. Some of you are saying this. You 
are saying, some day I will do this. You have not 
spoken to your friend, even to your own boy, but 
you expect to do so. You have not spoken to the 
commercial salesman who comes to your store, but 
you expect to speak to him some day. Some day 
you will not rise from your bed. Some morning 
they will wait for you at the breakfast table. Some 
morning your boy will mount the stairs to your 
room and push open the door, and then he will go 
rushing down the stairs again to his mother, and 
say : " Father is dead." I am not trying to appeal 



1G2 "IS IT NOTHING TO YOU?" 

to your fears, but I am perfectly willing to appeal 
to your emotions. I am myself emotional. I think 
it is a wonderful thing to stand with one's heart 
full of feeling between God and dying men. 

To-morrow may find you in eternity. Is it 
nothing to you that the time is short? I ask an- 
other question: Would you be prepared if you 
should have to stand face to face with God to- 
morrow ? I am not now questioning your personal 
acceptance of God. I am not now questioning your 
position in the Church, but I am asking about what 
you have done for others. You have children at 
your table. You have a man working for you. 
There are many whom you know intimately, and 
you have never said a word to any of them about 
Christ. What can you say about this when you 
stand face to face with God? 

I cannot understand how anyone can be indiffer- 
ent to Christ. There was an old man in my church 
in New York State. He was taking me out one 
day to see some work that he was doing, and as we 
went along he told me of an experience he once 
had in Cork, Ireland. He said : " I was standing 
on the ground looking at a building and saw that 
a ladder was going to fall. Two men were on the 
last rung. I put my hand to my mouth and 
shouted: ' Men, step aside!' They were near the 
edge of a scaffold. One stepped aside safely, but 
the other lost his balance and fell from the third 
story. I saw him coming down, but I was rooted 



"IS IT NOTHING TO YOU?" 163 

to the spot. I could not move. There was a man 
by my side who stretched out his arms and caught 
the falling man. The man who fell was scarcely 
injured, but the man who caught him had his arms 
broken and driven into their sockets. His spine, 
too, was twisted out of shape. They carried him 
to a hospital." Eagerly I asked my friend : " What 
became of him ? " He replied : " He still lives. I 
was in Cork a few summers ago and saw him work- 
ing his way along the streets of the city. A terrible 
sight to see ! " Then it suddenly occurred to me to 
ask about the man whose life he had saved. I wish 
you could have seen him when I asked the question. 
He told me that the man he had saved had made 
over half his property to his family, and had en- 
tered into a covenant to give him half of all the 
money he ever made. Fine, wasn't it ? What if 
he had told me that the man had turned his bacK 
upon him? But wait! The Lord Jesus Christ 
came into this world and lived and suffered and 
died to save me. Let me tell you. I thiuk I ought 
to be busy, in season and out of season, for Him. 
I think I ought to go up and down the streets and 
into the shops to tell men about Him. Oh, if we 
can get that spirit to-day, the work will be won- 
derful. 

There are three illustrations with which I hurry 
to a close. They are scriptural. Jeremiah 9 : 1 — 
" Oh that my head were waters and mine eyes a 
fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night 



164 "IS IT NOTHING TO YOU?" 

for the slain of the daughter of my people." It is 
a picture of sin. Do you know that not in all the 
world's history has there been such sin as to-day. 
Do you know that your boys cannot walk the streets 
without having injury done to their souls. Your 
girls cannot go about without seeing things that 
mar their spirits. It is fifty times harder for your 
boy to be true than it was for you when you were 
a boy. There are ten thousand ways leading 
straight to perdition. How can any of us be indif- 
ferent to sin? How can any of us be careless of 
the slain of the daughter of the people ? 

The second illustration is this: It is that pic- 
ture in the New Testament where the Jews are 
stoning Jesus. A little further on in the narrative 
it says that the Jews took up stones again with 
which to stone Him. His blessed face was bruised 
before the time, and the blood gushed out and fell 
upon His breast. Then it was that Jesus said in 
His tenderest way : " Many good works have I 
showed you from my Father, for which of these do 
you stone me ? " I think it would be better even 
to stone Jesus than to be indifferent to Him. 

The third illustration is where St. Paul says: 
" I am willing to become accursed for my breth- 
ren." These are the words of a man who was living 
for other people. How can any of us be indifferent 
to people in the sight of God ? There is one prayer 
that I want you to offer for me. I have been a long 
time in evangelistic work. Perhaps longer than al- 



"IS IT NOTHING TO YOU?" 165 

most anybody now in the field. My time may be 
short. I do not know. The prayer I have been of- 
fering is the one I want you to make for me, that 
I may preach this year with a broken heart because 
people are lost. Is it nothing to you? You Sun- 
day School teachers, tell me, is it nothing to you 
that your scholars are out of Christ? I sat years 
ago in a Methodist Sunday School, in Richmond, 
Ind., by the side of a little old-fashioned woman. 
Some one was speaking from the platform, who 
that somebody was I cannot find out now, but I re- 
member what he said. He said : " Stand up and 
confess Christ." The little old-fashioned woman 
looked at me and said : " Wilbur, better stand, ,r 
and when I did not respond, she put her arm under 
my elbow and lifted me and I arose. That little 
old-fashioned woman still lives in Indiana. I heard 
from her the other day, and she said : " I am glad 
I put my fingers under your elbow and lifted.'' Is 
it nothing to you, teacher, that in your class there 
is a boy who might some day preach the gospel or 
sing the songs of Zion? Is it nothing to you, 
fathers and mothers, that you have a boy in your 
home who might some day shake a continent for 
God? 

I said to my church officers in New York City 
one day : " How many have you won to Christ ? " 
One man, a banker, replied : "If you will excuse 
me, I will go home. I have four boys. One of 
them is a deacon in the church, but I have not 



166 "IS IT NOTHING TO YOU?" 

spoken to the others about their souls." He went 
home and went up to the room where the boys were 
sleeping, and bending down he kissed one of them. 
Then he said to him : " My boy, I have come home 
to ask you to become a Christian." I took that boy 
and one of his brothers into the church the next 
Sunday. Is it nothing to you that there are boys 
and girls very near to you who ought to be brought 
to Christ? 

Is it nothing to you that up and down the streets 
of this city men are walking, bound with passions, 
held by sin, hurt by the influences of the devil? 
Tell me, is it nothing to you ? Is it nothing to you ? 
Down in one of the southern cities where we were 
working there was a young doctor who had gradu- 
ated with highest honors in Philadelphia. He was 
beginning to win renown as a surgeon. 2s"o doubt 
he would have become famous. In an unguarded 
moment he began to drink. There was a sleeping 
demon somewhere in his being. The young doctor 
headed straight to destruction. He lost everything. 
One beautiful Sunday morning in October his little 
boy and girl were out gathering flowers and nuts 
in the woods. They had a hammer to crack the 
nuts. They had come back into the house, still 
cracking the nuts with the hammer. The father 
came in wild with drink and turned like a demon 
against his wife. The little boy, hammer in hand, 
stepped forward and said : " Father, please don't 
hurt mother." He killed both the boy and his sis- 



"IS IT NOTHING TO YOU?" 167 

ter, and even took the little baby from the bed and 
killed it. He was a man of fine sensibilities when 
he was sober. Sin had chained him. To-day he is 
behind prison bars for life. Up and down the 
streets of the town where his wife had lived like a 
queen, she walks now earning her daily bread with 
hardest toil. Is it nothing to you that sin can do 
deeds like this ? Is it nothing to you that there are 
people without hope, homes that are desolate? Is 
it nothing to you that the Saviour is here ready to 
save men from their sins ? 

In a moment the service will close. Mr. Alex- 
ander will start the singing. You may stay if you 
will. Oh, my God ! If only there might be in this 
city a wonderful revival. Heavenly Father! If 
only there might come to the ministers the blessing 
their hearts are seeking. If only I might have the 
ability to preach so that men's hearts would break. 
If only Mr. Alexander might sing so as to help men 
feel the presence of Jesus Christ. Give us such a 
look in the eye, such a ring in the voice, as shall 
make men serious. Oh, that there may come to 
fathers and mothers such concern for their chil- 
dren, that they shall say with tears in their eyes: 
Turn to God. Oh, that there may come to minis- 
ters such a passion for souls that tears may fill their 
eyes and longing may speak in their voices. Why 
not? Oh, God! Why not? Amen. 



THE PEECIOUS BLOOD OF CHKIST 

I AM preaching to-night on what I believe to 
be the most important subject in the Bible. 
Of course, anything that has to do with 
Jesus Christ is of vast importance. My text is 
found in the First Epistle of Peter 1 : 19— " The 
precious blood of Christ." 

The Apostle Peter, as we all know, was a fisher- 
man in his earlier days. It is wonderful that he 
became the leader and writer that he was, and, 
strange to say, the word that he uses many times is 
this word — precious. He speaks of precious prom- 
ises. He says of Jesus : " Unto you that believe, 
He is precious." It is just about the last word that 
you would expect a fisherman to use. He was prob- 
ably an uncultured man and a stranger to the' 
schools. Before he began to follow Jesus, he had 
the habit of profanity. There was an occasion 
when, in an unguarded moment, his old habit took 
hold upon him and with an oath he said : " I know 
not the man." All this goes to show that if one 
accepts Jesus Christ as a Saviour and yields him- 
self wholly to him, the Master will take complete 
possession of him and fashion him all over again. 
The power of old habits will be broken and the in- 
fluence of evil associations will be overcome. When 

168 



THE PRECIOUS BLOOD OF CHRIST 169 

once Jesus comes into our lives, we are literally a 
new creation. 

The word of the text is the word of an artist. 
It is the word of a man who feels power in his soul. 
When the Apostle Peter caught a vision of Jesus 
Christ, his soul was on fire, and he used this word : 
The precious Mood of Christ ! All too little is said 
in these days about the blood of Christ. Some of 
us seem to avoid the subject as much as possible. 
The other evening I spoke about the personality 
and influence of Satan. If there is one truth more 
than another that Satan would oppose, it is the 
truth of this text. If there is one subject that he 
would like to turn our minds away from, it is the 
blood of Jesus Christ. He tells us that we can be 
saved by reformation, by good deeds. He tells us 
that we can be saved by doing our best. But all 
the way through the New Testament we find that 
the only way to God is a blood-marked way. The 
precious blood of Christ ! I suggest that you take 
a little camel's hair brush some time, and a bottle 
of red ink, and go through the ~New Testament, 
marking with red every passage that has to do with 
sacrifice, with the death of Christ. Every passage 
that speaks of salvation as the result of the shed- 
ding of blood. Well, you will mark a great many 
passages. You will redden everything that deals 
with pardon and peace, and forgiveness, and joy, 
and salvation, and the very music of heaven itself. 
Then when you have marked these verses red, take 



170 THE PRECIOUS BLOOD OF CHRIST 

a little pair of scissors and clip out every red verse. 
Then you will begin to understand how large a 
place the blood occupies in the salvation of man. 
The apostle knew this, and because he knew it, he 
said : The precious blood of Christ ! 

If you go through the Old Testament, you will 
find that the way to get back to God is the way of 
sacrifice. There it was the blood of bulls and goats, 
but these were not sufficient. When sin was too 
great, and human nature too weak, then Jesus 
Christ came in the flesh. He lived and loved, and 
suffered and died, and His heart broke. From 
pierced hands and feet and broken heart His blood, 
poured forth, and because of this sacrifice, the 
Apostle Peter writes : The precious blood of Christ. 
In the Old Testament there are many figures that 
are used to make it plain. For example, when 
judgment was hanging over the homes in Israel, 
and the first born was about to be slain in Egypt, 
then the lamb without spot was sacrificed, the blood 
was collected in a basin, a bunch of hyssop was 
dipped in the blood, and the blood was sprinkled 
on the doorposts, and the word that came to the peo- 
ple was : " When I see the blood, I will pass over 
you." Remember the lamb was to be without blem- 
ish. Jesus met this condition. The lamb was to 
be slain. Jesus died that we might live. 

I allow no one to go beyond me in paying tribute 
to the earthly ministry of the Master, to the mar- 
vellous words He spoke, and the great deeds He did. 



THE PRECIOUS BLOOD OF CHRIST 171 

But I wish to say that I think I can prove that 
there is nothing said in the New Testament about 
our being saved by His life. I know there is one 
expression in the Epistle to the Romans which 
might seem to teach this : " Saved by his life." 
But literally this means — Kept safe in his 
life. The message of the Apostle Paul here 
was not to the unsaved, but to the saved. 
He is telling us that when once we have 
accepted Jesus Christ as the Saviour, then we have 
him as our environment, as our protector. His 
arms are underneath us and round about us. His 
wings are above us and we are kept safe in His life. 
But God's Word teaches clearly that I am saved 
not because he lives, but because he died. One of 
the greatest preachers in England said the other 
day something like this — " Some men have a way 
of saying in these days very much about the works 
of men and very little about the death of Jesus 
Christ." But if I should lose out of my thinking 
the death of Christ and the shedding of His blood 
and all that it means, then I should have a wrong 
conception of God and His righteousness and 
justice. Also I should know that there was no 
chance for me to be saved, for if God could look 
upon sin and pass it over without an atonement, 
without something to blot it out, I think I should 
lose my great conception of God. I should also lose 
my joy as a saved sinner. But when I realize that 
He may be just, and the justifier of them that be- 



172 THE PRECIOUS BLOOD OF CHRIST 

lieve, when I know that He may hate sin while He 
loves the sinner, when I know that His own Son 
bore in His body onr sins upon the tree — then I can 
sing and shout for joy, for I know that I am lifted 
from despair into hope, from darkness into light, 
from bondage into freedom. The Apostle Peter 
knew this, so we hear him say — the precious blood 
of Christ. How plain it all is, prefigured in the 
Old Testament, perfectly illustrated in the Xew. 
Listen while I give you some passages of Scripture. 

Jesus Christ died, and in dying he paid the pen- 
alty for my sins. His death was, therefore, penal. 
Galatians 3 :13 : " Christ hath redeemed us from 
the curse of the law, being made a curse for us." 
You remember the story of Father Damien. I re- 
call when he started away from our country to the 
Hawaiian Islands to become a leper and to die as 
a leper for the sake of the lepers whom he served. 
Yet this is a poor illustration of Jesus Christ. He 
came into this world and suffered in my stead. He 
bore the shame of the cross. He was made a curse 
for me. As by faith I lift my eyes to Him and 
take Him as my Saviour, I take His place in the 
love and favor of God. 

Listen again. It was a voluntary death. 
John 10 :18 : " Xo man taketh it from me, but I 
lay it down of myself." I wish that I could help 
you to see what my salvation and yours cost. He 
turned away from the joy of heaven to the shame 
of earth. He turned away from the vast throngs 



THE PRECIOUS BLOOD OF CHRIST 173 

saying — Holy, Holy, Holy, to this world where 
they veiled his face and smote him. He turned 
away from the immediate presence of the Father, 
and came down into this world where men spat in 
His face and heaped shame upon Him, and even 
placed the cross upon His tired shoulders. They 
did even more than this. They put Him on the 
cross and drove nails through His hands and feet. 
They lifted Him up between heaven and earth, as 
if He were unfit for earth and as if they would 
hold Him hack from Heaven. He came down to 
earth to meet «all this and He did it willingly. He 
was ready to suffer, ready to die for you and me. 
To-night, all you need to do to have the bondage of 
sin taken away and to have sin cast behind God's 
back, is just to take Him as your personal Saviour, 
and with His help to turn away from sin. 

It was a substitutionary death. In these times 
men seem to shrink from this thought. I have 
no harsh word for any man who cannot accept my 
theological position. I have no harsh word for the 
man who cannot at first accept a substitutionary 
death of Jesus Christ. But let me explain the 
meaning. It means that He takes my place and 
offers up Himself for me. I only know that I find 
this throughout the Word of God, and it takes hold 
of my soul and grips me. II Corinthians 5:21: 
" For He hath made Him to be sin for us who 
knew no sin." There are some things in this world 
that are so dreadful that we cannot think of them 



171 THE PRECIOUS BLOOD OF CHRIST 

without growing sick. We cannot speak of them 
without suffering. So it is when we think of sin 
in connection with Jesus. Yet we are told that He 
was made sin for us. When men come to my room 
and tell me that they are drunken and lecherous, 
that they have secret sins and passions that bind 
them, I can only go so far with them. These 
things I have not experienced, except through my 
sympathy. Yet while my Saviour did not sin, He 
was made sin for us. When the man who was a 
drunkard comes to Him, or the lecherous man, or 
the dishonest man, or the woman who is weak, my 
blessed Redeemer knows all about their trouble, 
and knowing their trouble and staggering beneath 
the weight of the world's woe, He hurries to the 
cross and dies. St. Peter knew this when he 
said — The precious blood of Christ ! 

Hear me, too, when I give you this text from the 
Old Testament. Leviticus 17:11: " For the life 
of the flesh is in the blood. n What does this mean ? 
It means that when Jesus Christ came into this 
world and lived and loved and suffered; when His 
heart broke on Calvary's cross and the blood poured 
from His veins, He was laying down His life for 
vou and for me. Of course, if I should lay down 
my life for you, it might avail in a certain way, 
but the value of the life determines the value of 
the blood. Do you not see this ? I stand here to- 
night preaching and I know that there are some 
rich people here who are nevertheless very weak. 



,THE PRECIOUS BLOOD OF CHRIST 175 

There are some who are high, in social life, but 
they have gone astray. Some are poor, too, and 
they have turned away from God. But no matter 
who you are, my Saviour is groaning upon Calvary 
and shedding His blood. He is able to save you all. 
The Apostle Peter knew this, and he said — The 
precious blood of Christ. I am hurrying to the 
close of my message but I want you to know the 
hope that is in the blood of Christ. Do not resist 
Him, my friends. Do not reject His precious 
blood. 

My friend, Dr. Geo. P. Pentecost, was deter- 
mined to climb Pike's Peak alone. His friends 
said to him, " You cannot do it without a guide 
who knows the way." But Dr. Pentecost said, " I 
know that I can climb it alone." So he started off. 
They told him that at a certain curve in the moun- 
tain there was a hut, open to any traveler, if by 
any chance he should miss his way going up>. He 
was getting along very well, when suddenly a snow- 
storm overtook him. Without warning the blinding 
snow covered him and he began to drift. He stag- 
gered and fell, and then there came to him the 
warnings of his friends. He had practically given 
himself up to die, when he realized, as he lay upon 
the ground, that his hands were touching some dry 
twigs. It came to him that if he could start a fire 
he might still escape. He felt in his pocket for 
matches, and found one. But the wind was blow- 
ing a perfect gale. I heard Dr. Pentecost say that 



176 THE PRECIOUS BLOOD OF CHRIST 

lie took that single match and, shielding it in his 
hands from the snow, started to strike it, hut he 
was afraid and he put it hack into his pocket again. 
Finally, in his desperation, he got up closer under 
the shadow of a rock and struck the match, shield- 
ing the little flame as hest he could, and touching 
it to the dry twigs. The fire was started, and his 
life was saved. There was just that one little thing 
between him and death. What a blessing that he 
did not treat it carelessly. To-night I am standing 
here to say that there is just one thing between you 
and judgment, and that one thing is the precious 
blood of Christ. I beg you not to treat it care- 
lessly. 

But someone is saying, — You don't know my 
sins. You don't know my habits. If I should start 
this evening, my old habits would come back at my 
heels like hounds scenting blood. True, I don't 
know your habits, but I do know my Saviour. 

Do you remember the story in Scottish history, 
when they were seeking to take Bruce the King? 
They heard that he was in his palace and they 
started after him. The King heard that they were 
coming, and escaped with his trusted few. They 
made their way through the fields and into the 
forests, and when they thought that they had 
escaped, in the distance Bruce heard the baying of 
bloodhounds. They were his own bloodhounds. He 
gave himself up for lost, but in the distance he 
heard the babbling sound of a little mountain 



THE PRECIOUS BLOOD OF CHRIST 177 

stream. With his faithful followers he went into 
the stream and by going up the stream some dis- 
tance and across to the other side, they covered 
their trail. When the hounds came to the stream, 
so history tells us, they lost the trail and Bruce was 
saved. But I know a story a thousand times better 
than this. Yes, I do. I ask you to give your hearts 
to Christ, and then start, and the moment you start, 
all the old habits of your life are after you again ; 
the old passions and lusts and desires. You have 
only half started when you sink back and say — It 
is hopeless. But wait a moment. You can cover 
your trail. Mr. Alexander and I landed one night, 
four hours late, on the Fiji Jslands. We were to 
have held services there. The service had to be 
cancelled. Nevertheless, we decided to stop, for we 
wanted to say at least that we had been in the Fiji 
Islands. While we were there, we heard in the dis- 
tance what sounded like a cannon. We were told 
that it was calling the people to the House of God. 
A man stood with a mallet by a hollow log of a 
special kind of wood, and the sound could be heard 
for miles. We climbed up the hill and found a 
multitude of people with black skins and strange 
hair waiting for us. They sang two songs, in which 
Mr. Alexander led them. One was the " Glory 
Song," and the other was the song which belongs 
to our subject this evening. We did not know the 
words, but we knew the music. We have heard this 
song in every land under the sun. We have heard 



178 THE PRECIOUS BLOOD OF CHRIST 

people sing it with tears rolling down their cheeks. 
We have heard it sung while multitudes pressed up 
to the altar and sobbed their way into the Kingdom 
of God. This is the song they were singing in the 
Fiji Islands — 

" There is a fountain filled with blood, 
Drawn from Immanuel's veins.' ' 

Can you not see it ? Plunge in ! Plunge in ! To- 
night ! To-night ! Nobody is too sinful ! 

Nobody is too sinful. Nobody is too far away. 
The precious blood of Christ can cleanse and save 
unto the uttermost. Nothing less than his blood 
can do this. " Though your sins be as scarlet, they 
shall be as white as snow. Though they be red like 
crimson, they shall be as wool." 

I can say no more. With all my heart I wish 
that I might. I can only add this. I love Him. 
I love Him. He is to me as real as you are. I love 
Him. I want you to love Him. I want you to 
take Him. I know that there are people who want 
to say this evening — " Pray for me." Lift up 
your hand to express this desire of your heart. 



XVI 

A FORSAKEN LEADER 

YOU remember the words that are found in 
II Timothy 4:10— "Demas hath for- 
saken me." They form my text to 
night and my subject is : " A Forsaken Leader." 

There are some expressions in the Bible that are 
so full of pathos as to be indescribable. In the first 
book of the Bible you hear God saying to a wander- 
ing child of his, " Where art thou % " A little later 
the word is, " Where is thy brother ? " Further 
along you hear Jacob saying, "Me ye have bereft 
of my children. Joseph is not. Simeon is not. 
And now ye will take Benjamin from me." You 
remember what Moses said : " Let the children of 
Israel return, but if not ! " Mr. Moody used to 
say that there was the power of a sob in that un- 
finished sentence. Then hear David, as he stag- 
gers from between the gates, saying, "Oh, Absa- 
lom, my son, my son." It is the same in the New 
Testament, as, for example, when the Master says : 
" Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I 
have gathered you even as a hen gathers her chick- 
ens under her wing, and ye would not." I say that 
there are expressions in the Bible that for pathos 
have never been equalled. 

This text of mine is an example of the pathos of 
179 



180 A FORSAKEN LEADER 

the Scripture. The Apostle Paul is at the end of 
his journey. He is weary and worn. He is old 
before his time. His hair thin, and streaked with 
gray. His body frail, his back bent, his heart- 
strings strained to the snapping. He is just at the 
time of life when he needs human sympathy. It 
was then that he had his experience with Demas. 
Writing his letter to Timothy, the last letter, in- 
deed, that he ever wrote, he slips in this little sen- 
tence, which is a revelation of his heart : " Demas 
hath forsaken me." Very little is said in the New 
Testament about Demas. There are only a few 
references, yet we know a great deal about him. In 
Colossians 4:14, we read : u Luke, the beloved 
physician, and Demas." Certainly he is in excel- 
lent company here. We say that a man is known 
by the company he keeps. Demas and Luke the 
physician must have had fellowship together. No 
doubt there was something fine about Demas. Turn 
to the Epistle to Philemon, 1 : 24, and you read : 
" Marcus, Aristarchus, Demas." He is still in 
good company. Now look at the text of the after- 
noon : " Demas hath forsaken me." 

This is all that is said about him, but it is 
enough. They tell us that a man who is a scientist 
can take a single bone of an animal and build from 
that bone the structure of the whole animal. We 
do not need many verses about Demas. We do not 
require elaborate description. These few hints are 
enough. The picture is something like this: A 



A FORSAKEN LEADER 181 

bright, cheery young fellow, an attractive person- 
ality, one who would be greatly influenced by such 
a personality as that of Paul. When Demas heard 
Paul's message, it stirred him through and through, 
and, without counting the cost, he made up his 
mind that he would follow this great leader. 
Everything goes well for a season. It is a great 
thing to be in the crowd and hear the people ap- 
plauding the apostle. To be in such company was 
wonderful. He did not mind being stoned once, 
but being stoned two or three times was different. 
It lost its charm. It might be well enough to be in 
prison once, but when the experience repeated itself, 
the chill of the prison began to be too much for 
him. Then it was that the remembrance of the 
world, its brightness and charm, came back upon 
him, and so, having loved this present world, Demas 
turned his back upon the apostle. Just when Paul 
needed him most, he was not there to comfort him. 

I can imagine the apostle with tears in his eyes 
and a sob in his voice, as he writes to Timothy, 
saying : " Demas hath forsaken me." I learn cer- 
tain lessons. You can easily remember them be- 
cause they begin with the same letter. 

The first lesson is about the power of person- 
ality. It is very wonderful, either for good or for 
evil. They say that when Napoleon was at the head 
of his army, he could dismiss twenty thousand men 
and retain the army's strength. Napoleon was 
worth twenty thousand of his men. That is per- 



182 A FORSAKEN LEADER 

sonality. I heard a minister say that he opened 
his church for Catherine Booth to tell her story, 
but he did so reluctantly and with prejudice. But 
when Catherine Booth told her story, with tears 
rolling down her cheeks, he said : " I made up my 
mind that if Catherine Booth wanted me to follow 
her to the ends of the earth, I would do so." He 
was a prominent minister, but he said that he would 
be willing to go on his hands and knees to help 
her in her work. Such is the power of a conse- 
crated personality. 

You know what I mean when I talk about per- 
sonality working for good or evil. There are per- 
sons whose names I could speak and it would give 
you a shiver to hear them. They would make your 
heart sink. If they should come to visit you, you 
would almost backslide. A man came and stayed 
with me for three weeks. He had been there two 
weeks and we could not have family worship. We 
began one morning, and I asked my brother, who 
was also visiting me, to pray. He whispered back 
to me : " Pray yourself." I could not pray, and 
nobody could. It was just a personality let loose 
in our home that put us all on edge. 

There are other personalities that make life 
brighter and better. When I lived in Winona, we 
often had the privilege of having Samuel H. Had- 
ley with us. You know he was Jerry McAuley's 
successor in the Water 'Street Mission in New York. 
He always came in the summer. I remember how 



A FORSAKEN LEADER 183 

we went down to the station to meet him and take 
him to the house in the country. As soon as word 
got around, other people would come in to see him 
and the house would be crowded. You could 
scarcely drive the children to bed, nor could you 
drive them to play. They wanted to sit close to him 
and hear every word. At those times we always 
had poor service at the table, because the servants 
would forget to pass things. They would start 
around with a plate, and then they would stop and 
listen to what he was saying. He was a perfectly 
wonderful man. When his visit closed, we would 
follow him to the door. The neighbours came out 
and stood on the porch to say farewell. Sometimes 
I would take him to the station, and other times I 
would give ./the children the privilege of taking him. 
We would stand, brushing away our tears with one 
hand, and waving our handkerchiefs with the other, 
and calling out " Good-bye, Good-bye." I can see 
him now, turning his great shining face back and 
shouting, " Good-bye." Then we would go back 
into the house and say : It has been like heaven to 
have him here. We never lost the influence of his 
presence. Personality 'plus Jesus Christ. The 
story of the apostle Paul is like this. He had won- 
derful power with men. It was so no doubt with 
Demas. Demas heard him speak one day, and 
was moved to follow him. He was with him al- 
most to the end, and then he went back to the 
world. What a pitiful story it is! 



184 A FORSAKEN LEADER 

The next thing I learn in this story is the privi- 
lege of fellowship. Did you notice what I read 
a little while ago in the New Testament ? " Luke 
the beloved physician and Demas." Demas had 
every opportunity for fellowship. When Luke 
went about with Paul the apostle, he must have 
watched him very carefully for he was a physician. 
He saw when his eyes were flashing and when his 
face was flushed. He noticed if his fingers 
twitched. He knew when he could not sleep at 
night. Now Demas was with Luke, and I have 
always thought that he might have been a kind of 
nurse to the apostle. Often, no doubt, he quieted 
him ; touched his hand tenderly, or spoke softly to 
him. Maybe he sang some hymn that the apostle 
loved. It was a very close fellowship. So now 
when Paul is almost at the end, and he looks for 
Demas, he finds that he has gone. No wonder that 
there is a sob in the sentence he writes : " Demas 
hath forsaken me." 

Demas had wonderful privileges given to him. I 
should like to make you feel to-day, if I can, what 
it means to do little or great things for Jesus Christ. 
Just a kind word, just a clasp of the hand, just a 
smile, just a cup of cold water — things like these 
mean fellowship one with the other and with Him. 
When we were closing our first journey in Austra- 
lia, Mr. Alexander and I came finally to Adelaide, 
in southern Australia. We had been so long in 
the country that we were known by the people. The 



A FORSAKEN LEADER 185 

Australians are such gracious and kindly people, 
particularly to Americans. By the time we reached 
Adelaide, crowds thronged us everywhere. If we 
went on the streets, they would gather around us 
and insist upon a service. One day in Adelaide I 
was exceedingly weary. It was raining, as it only 
can in Australia when the rainy season is on. I 
said to Mr. Alexander : " I will take the service 
first and you the singing afterwards." The church 
was crowded, and notwithstanding the rain, many 
hundreds were standing outside. I finished my 
part of the service and started away to another 
church. I was pushing my way to a cab when a 
very plain, ordinary-looking man stopped me and 
took my hand and pulled me over into a puddle of 
water. A crowd began to gather around us. I do 
not know whether I looked mad or not, but I said : 
" You must not stop me. You must not draw me 
into the water." I remember how his face looked, 
little bits of red eyes and a little bit of a worn cap. 
He smiled and said : " Well, you must excuse me. 
I only wanted to give you some money." Then I 
was willing that he should pull me into the water 
again. He added : " I want to give the money to 
you to give to Mr. O'Brien." Mr. O'Brien was a 
missionary from India. He had come to Australia 
and was preparing one of the fields for our coming. 
One day he was walking on a railroad track and 
fell into a cattle pit. Half stunned, he climbed 
out, when a train came along and ran over one of 



186 A FORSAKEN LEADER 

his hands. They took him to the hospital, and the 
'Australian people were sending him money. The 
old man wanted to give a present to him. I thought 
it might be a pound, that is, five dollars. I said : 
" Come around to-morrow morning and I will 
take the money." When he came, he laid down a 
check for one hundred pounds, that is, five hundred 
dollars. " Oh," I said, " are you going to give so 
much as that ? Then you must take it to the hos- 
pital, and we will go with you." So we got into 
a cab and started for the hospital. On the way I 
asked him about his occupation. He said : " I am 
a station man." I thought he meant a railroad sta- 
tion man, but he explained : " I live on a great 
ranch." I said : " How large ? Eive hundred 
acres ? " He began to smile, and said : " Well, sir, 
it is two hundred and fifty thousand acres. I have 
two hundred thousand sheep grazing on it, and 
there is a railroad forty miles long on my place." 
Then I was not sorry that he was giving one hun- 
dred pounds. When we reached the hospital, a 
nurse took us to the room, and there, lying on a 
cot, was the missionary. His arm was bandaged 
and his eyes shut. The nurse said : " Dr. Chap- 
man and Mr, Alexander are here." He opened his 
eyes quickly and smiled his welcome. I said: 
" Yes, we have brought you a friend who wants to 
give you one hundred pounds." " Did you say one 
hundred pounds ? " he inquired. I have never seen 
anything like his face in my life. His eyes filled 



A FORSAKEN LEADER 187 

with tears. I said : " Yes, one hundred pounds." 
" Oh," he said, " all last night, when I could not 
sleep 1 , I was praying for one hundred pounds. I 
want to send to India for my wife and children." 
And I turned to the farmer and said : " Mr. Mac- 
Bride, give him the money." He laid the check 
upon the bandaged hand of the missionary, who 
said : " Thank you, sir." Then the old farmer 
turned and threw his arms around me and said: 
" Is this Christian work ? " I said : " Yes, this is 
Christian work." " Very well, then," he said, " I 
know what a thrill means. I have it in my heart 
now. I shall give my life to Jesus Christ, and my 
station, and my all to Him." We went back three 
years later, and found that he had kept his word. 
He had sold his great ranch and was giving away 
his money by the thousands. Only yesterday a let- 
ter came from Australia saying that he was still 
doing it. If I could only help you to understand 
what it means to have fellowship together in doing 
good. It was work like this that Demas turned his 
back upon. 

Another lesson to be learned is the pathos of a 
forsaken leader. I can see the apostle with tears 
in his eyes, for he was very human. Demas had 
gone. It is a picture to make one's heart sad. But 
I know something sadder even than this. I know 
of another Forsaken Leader. You know whom I 
mean. Who is forsaking Him? There is some 
church member here who used to serve Him faith- 



188 A FORSAKEN LEADER 

fully. Your heart would thrill as you did His 
work. Maybe you were a Sunday School teacher, 
or a soul winner. Alas ! the world came in between 
you and Jesus. The fascination and glamour of it 
blinded you as it did Demas of old. You are here 
to-day and you have no peace. You have forsaken 
your leader. 

Who is forsaking Him ? Some church officer, it 
may be. There was a time when you served the 
elements which represent the broken body and the 
shed blood of Christ. To-day your name may be 
on the church roll, but you have no peace. I was 
preaching in a university town for five or six days. 
There were crowds in the church, but there was no 
blessing. I said to the minister : " You must let 
me go." " Wait until to-morrow," he said. When 
the morrow came I was preaching in an afternoon 
service. I had lifted my hands to pronounce the 
benediction, and the minister came down the aisle 
with a judge at his side. The minister lifted his 
hand, and I dropped mine. The judge at his side 
was the chief usher of the church, but his life was 
wrong. When he walked down the aisle, people 
would whisper "hypocrite." The minister had 
gone to him in the meeting and said : " Judge, if 
the things that they say are true, I want to help 
you. If they are untrue, I will defend you." And 
the judge replied : " Everything they say is true. 
I am a broken-hearted man." The whole congre- 
gation was sobered when he came walking down the 



A FORSAKEN LEADER 189 

aisle with the minister to take my hand. They 
knelt together at the altar. Presently the judge 
arose, and, lifting his hands before the congrega- 
tion, he said: "Ladies and gentlemen, I used to 
be an elder in the church. I was superintendent 
of the Sunday School. I had a family altar, but 
for years I have denied the Lord that bought me. 
I have gotten right with my minister. I want to 
get right with you. I hope you will forgive me." 
There was no benediction pronounced. The people 
passed by and took his hand. That night, when I 
finished my sermon and made my appeal, the first 
man to come was the judge, and he did not come 
alone. He had his arm around a young fellow who 
was a drunkard. He had come back to his For- 
saken Leader, and he had brought another with 
him. 

Who has forsaken Him? Is it some minister? 
There was a time when you preached Jesus Christ 
and Him crucified. To-day you think you have 
another gospel to preach. I never mean to say 
sharp things to men who do not agree with me. 
I think there is only one thing for a minister to do. 
When he comes to the place where he believes the 
Bible is not the Word of God, and that Jesus Christ 
is not very God of very God, I think he should 
resign. He should leave his pulpit. He ought not 
to accept a salary for preaching the gospel and yet 
not preach the Gospel. If there is a minister here 
to-day who used to preach with a burning heart 



190 A FORSAKEN LEADER 

and shining face in the olden days, but who has 
forsaken his Leader and lost the power of His pres- 
ence, all I say to you to-day is this — Hear Him 
calling you to come back. Come back to your For- 
saken Leader. 

I hurry to the close, but I want you to notice 
one thing more. I have spoken of the power of 
personality, the privilege of fellowship, and the 
pathos of a Forsaken Leader. Now think for a 
moment of the prostitution of a privilege. Demas 
might have gone on to glory. He might have stood 
with Paul at the end, and all the generations would 
have honoured him. It would have been a wonder- 
ful thing to have stood with the apostle and served 
him to the last. He missed a great privilege. Of 
course, it was not easy, but who wants an easy 
time? Do you? I do not. One reason why we 
fail as Christians is that we are losing the heroic 
element. Our work is too easy. There is not enough 
of a fight. There is a friend of Mr. Alexander who 
is a blacksmith. His name is Tom Sexton. Tom 
was soundly converted. He does not know the first 
principles of the English language. He can hardly 
speak three sentences correctly. Sam Jones sent 
for him to speak in his tabernacle, and he said that 
he looked like a man who had swallowed a water- 
melon. He introduced him like this : " Brothers 
and sisters, here is Brother Tom Sexton. First time 
I have seen him. He is not a very likely looking 
preacher, but they say he can preach. I will turn 



A FORSAKEN LEADER 191 

him loose." Tom preached on Paul and Silas. He 
described how they had been beaten with stripes, 
and how they had been cast into prison. After they 
had been in the cell a little while, Paul turned to 
Silas and said : " Let's sing." And Silas said : 
" Well, you sing if you want to. That last lick I 
got took all the sing out of me." And Paul said : 
" Well, we might as well sing, anyway. Let us 
sing something." And Silas answered : " Sing if 
you please, but I will do no singing." So' Tom 
Sexton said that Paul began to sing. He was 
wrong in his chronology, of course, hut he was 
perfectly right in principle. He said that Paul 
sang : 

" Must Jesus bear the cross alone, 
And all the world go free? 
No, there's a cross for everyone, 
And there's a cross for me." 

He said that is what he sang. Whether Paul 
sang that or not, we have all got to sing it if we 
want to be true. Who wants an easy time ? Isn't 
it worth while to do hard things for Jesus ? How 
fine it would have been if Demas had bared his 
own back to the smiters ; if he had even given him- 
self to be beheaded, and then had swept through 
the gates into the City ! 

Oh, it would have been wonderful if he could 
have followed Paul into the presence of the Master ! 
We were in Bendigo, Australia, and at the close of 
an afternoon's service our chairman came to me 



192 A FORSAKEN LEADER 

and said : " Yon and Mr. Alexander must go and 
make a call." I had been preaching six times a 
day, and I said : " I cannot go." " Well," said 
the chairman, "yon must go anyway." So we 
got into an automobile and started across the town. 
After a while we came to a little vine-clad cottage. 
It was in the height of summer, and the flowers 
were indescribably beautiful. We had come to a 
minister's house. He had once made a moral slip, 
but God had taken him back, and he had stood in 
the streets singing and preaching. It was Mother's 
Day. Here we use a little white flower. There they 
use a blossom that is peculiar to Australia, the 
wattle blossom. The old minister's wife went 
ahead, and the minister was lying on his couch 
with a little piece of wattle on his garment. " Hus- 
band," she said, " here are Dr. Chapman and Mr. 
Alexander." Instantly his eyes opened. Mr. 
Alexander reached him first and took his hand and 
said: " Can you sing ? " " Oh," he said, " I wish 
you could have heard me sing when I was at my 
best." " Well," said Mr. Alexander, " let us sing 
the Glory Song." I have heard the Glory Song 
sung in Melbourne with fifteen thousand people 
and a choir of thousands lifting it to the skies, and 
I wondered if heaven's music could be half so 
sweet. But I never heard anything to equal the 
singing of that old man — 

" Oh, that will be glory for me." 



A FORSAKEN LEADER 193 

He sank back on his couch and I took his hand and 
said : " Well, this is the end, and it is all well with 
you." I think I can remember what he said. 
Horatio Bonar wrote the words : 

" On the jasper threshold standing, 
Like a pilgrim safely landing, 
See the strange bright scenes expanding, 
This is Heaven at last." 

The old man was still a moment, and then he half 
rose, with his arms stretched out : 

" Christ Himself the living splendour, 
Christ, the sunlight mild and tender, 
Praises to the Lamb I'll render, 
This is Heaven at last." 



XVII 
THE PRODIGAL 

WE are looking to-night at one of the 
finest parts of the New Testament 
Scripture. I except, of course, those 
portions that refer directly to Jesus. I put them 
aside by themselves. They are incomparable. But 
I say again that my text is taken from one of the 
finest parts of the New Testament. It is in that 
old familiar chapter, Luke 15, and is a part of the 
stories which our Lord spoke in answer to censure. 
They said : " This man receiveth sinners and 
eateth with them." Then he turned to them with 
infinite patience and kindness and began to speak. 
It is a part of one of his stories that gives me my 
text. Luke 15 : 14 — " And he began to be in 
want." 

I have often said that I thought that this expres- 
sion hardly describes the boy who was away in sin. 
I have said that I thought possibly it ought to read 
like this: He began to appreciate his want. He 
began to understand how far he had wandered. 
When a short time ago there was placed in my 
hands a translation of the New Testament into 
modern English, made by Dr. Moffatt, of Oxford, 
I turned to this passage and read my text in these 

words : " And he began to feel in want." So I 

194 



THE PRODIGAL 195 

saw that I had had the right idea all along. I know 
that this boy who grieved his father and hurt his 
mother did not first begin to be in want out there 
in the land of sin. It was back there in his father's 
house that he began to be in want. He was restless 
under parental restraint. He was indifferent to 
home influences. He was grieving his mother and 
making his father's heart ache. He was in want 
even then. While he would not have said it with 
his lips, yet down in his heart he said it — " With 
all my heart I wish I were true." His fatal mis- 
take was that he did not speak it. He did not fol- 
low his better instinct. If I could help you young 
men and older men to speak out what is in your 
hearts, I might save you from many tears and heart- 
aches. I might save you from a ruined character. 
Suppose the boy had slipped away to his mother's 
side and told her of his unrest, or suppose he had 
walked in the fields with his father and had un- 
burdened his soul. 

Some time ago an unscrupulous politician in this 
state influenced a banker to permit him to over- 
draw his account. It was a time of great excite- 
ment politically, and the deed was done under the 
pressure of the time. In order to save himself, the 
officer of the bank began to manipulate the funds 
of the bank. But the overdraft was not made good. 
Then the bank examiner came, and the moment he 
entered the bank the officer knew that disgrace was 
awaiting him. He slipped quietly out of the bank, 



196 THE PRODIGAL 

went to his home and to his room and locked the 
door. Just before he drew the trigger he wrote his 
wife this letter: " My dear, I have had an aching 
heart ever since I committed the first wrong. 
There have been nights when I could not sleep. 
There have been days when I thought I would die." 
Then he said two things : " If I had only told you, 
and if someone had only spoken to me." If I could 
persuade you, knowing that your heart is not right, 
to speak to somebody, it might help you to find God. 
It might help you to be right with God. I do not 
covet your confession, but I do covet your confi- 
dence. If you could speak out the thing that is 
ruining your life, I feel that it would help you. It 
is when we first begin to be in want that we should 
turn to the Saviour. 

Of course, this boy was a prodigal long before 
he ever left his father's house. Sin is not merely 
an act. Sin is a state. You do not need to act sin 
out to be a sinner. Just have a rebellious spirit, a 
mind at enmity with God. Just allow some sin to 
drop into your heart and stay there without sincere 
and honest repentance. This is enough. In his 
home the boy was a prodigal. So one day the sin 
that was in his heart bore fruit on his lips, and he 
said : " Father, give me the portion of goods that 
falls to me." A little further on you read this: 
"And not many days after he gathered all to- 
gether." There was a lapse of time between his 
getting his goods and his leaving home. "No doubt 



THE PRODIGAL 197 

lie was just a boy like some of you here this even- 
ing, and I think I know what he did in the interval. 
He must have gone to visit some of the places dear 
to his boyhood. I think I can hear him saying to 
himself : " I have half a mind not to go." I can 
see him following his father around at his work. 
And when the father turned to him and said, " My 
son, I wish you would not go," the boy almost 
decided to stay at home. 

The son of one of my friends in Chicago said to 
him one day : " Father, I am going to leave home. 
I am tired of it all. Your restraints and mother's 
piety are driving me away." The morning came 
when he was to leave. His father heard him tip- 
toeing down the stairs an hour before the time he 
usually arose. He went to the door, and, throwing 
it open, called out: "Charlie, come in." When 
the boy entered the room of his father and mother, 
the old gentleman walked towards him, put his arm 
around his shoulder, and said : " Your mother and 
I have not slept all night. We think there must be 
something wrong in our lives, and before you go 
we want you to forgive us." The boy, whose name 
everybody in this house knows, looked at his father's 
tears and his own began to flow. " Father," he 
said, " the trouble is not with you and mother, the 
trouble is with me." Down on their knees together 
they went, the mother on one side of the boy and 
the father on the other side. When they arose, the 
boy started the Christian life. So I think it may 



198 THE PKODIGAL 

be that the father of the prodigal said to him: 
" My son, I wish you would not go." 

But the day came for his departure. I know that 
I am drawing upon my imagination, but why did 
God give us this power if we are not to use it? 
Where is there a book that stirs the imagination 
like this Book? So I have always thought that 
when the boy started his mother must have gone 
with him. She walked a little way, and then she 
said : " My son, I cannot go farther." Then her 
arms went around him and her face was against 
his,. and she whispered: " Oh, my boy, don't go! " 
And I can almost hear the boy saying, choking back 
his sobs : " I believe I will not go." But suddenly 
he pulls himself together and breaks away from his 
mother's arms, and starts on the way. Oh, that was 
his great mistake. To resist the pleading of those 
that loved him ! When I stood here the first night 
pleading with you to come to Christ, and you did 
not come, that is where you made your mistake. 

I can see the boy going on up the hill, until he 
reaches the top, and then he looks back. He can 
see his mother's smile, although he cannot hear her 
voice. He sees her beckoning hand, and he says to 
himself: "I believe I will go back." But he 
turned away. Last night when I stood pleading 
here, and one of you young men back yonder half 
arose and then sank back, it was just like the 
prodigal. So he went down the other side of the 
hill and around the curve in the road until he came 



THE PRODIGAL 199 

to the last place where he could see the old home 
and the sweet old mother standing on the road. 
Now he cannot even see her smile or her tears, but 
he sees her beckoning, and he hesitates and turns 
half round. But once more he turned back. " Oh, 
well," I hear him say, " I will go on a little way." 
That was his fatal mistake. I am speaking to you 
slowly and tenderly. I am asking you, with all the 
pathos of voice that God gives me to use, not to re- 
sist Him. To-day if you will hear His voice, 
harden not your heart. Harden not your heart ! 

Oh, it was fine to be free on the open road. No 
father's restraint, no home influence. Free! But 
of course it does not last long. I was walking down 
the streets of Paris one evening, and I saw some 
blazing lights just above the walk on which I was 
treading. I do not know French, so I said to a 
friend who understood the language : " What does 
it say ? " There was a great stream of young peo- 
ple passing under the sign, and I wanted to know 
about it. My friend translated it — " Nothing to 
pay." We stood where we could see through the 
swinging doors, and from behind the doors we 
heard entrancing music. Then we heard the loud 
voices of drunken women and the oaths of intoxi- 
cated men. There was the sound, too, of policemen 
taking drunken people out. Nothing to pay! My 
God ! Everything to pay ! Loss of manhood, sacri- 
fice of womanhood, ruin of soul ! The boy thought 
that it was all well with him. Then comes the text : 



200 THE PRODIGAL 

"He began to be in want." There was a mighty 
famine in the land. At first it seemed well enough 
with him. Everybody applauded him. He was 
well dressed. The first thrill of passion was upon 
him. The glamour of sin was about him. It was 
all well with him as long as his goods lasted. Then 
the famine came, ISTo friends, no resources. This 
is the sad thing about sin — that it brings men to 
want. Some of you have been listening to my 
pleading night after night, and I have not seen you 
turn to Christ. I have preached with earnestness, 
even with tears, yet some of you are holding back. 
This may be your last call. Who can tell? The 
ministers have been pleading. Friends have been 
praying. Mothers have been crying out to God. 
If you do not know that you are in want, let me 
assure you that you are. Sin always makes a 
mighty famine, but it isn't too late to turn back to 
the Father's house. 

A friend of mine stepped into a New York Cen- 
tral train in Albany, and there was only one vacant 
seat in the day coach. He sat down beside another 
man. The man proved to be an interesting talker. 
He had been reading a letter, he told my friend: 
" This letter is from my mother." " Oh," said my 
friend. " Yes, it is from my mother," he went on. 
" I don't know whether you are a Christian or not, 
but this letter made me a Christian." So my friend 
said to him : " Would you mind letting me see the 
letter ? I would like to see a letter that would make 



THE PRODIGAL 201 

a man a Christian." So the man passed it to him 
and said : " Before you read it, let me tell you it 
was not any single sentence that she wrote that 
made me a Christian. But I want you to notice 
how she signed her name, and how crooked the lines 
are, * Lovingly, Mother.' My mother is an old 
woman. She is the last of the family. She has 
prayed over me ever since my birth. When I saw 
that signature, I said, ' If she should die before I 
am saved !' And just before you came into the car 
I dropped my head in my hands and accepted the 
Saviour." What if your mother should die. What 
if your wife should die, and you are not saved. 
God pity you ! 

He went and joined himself to a citizen of that 
country and he sent him into his fields to feed the 
swine. There is an old story often used by minis- 
ters, which tells of a king who said to one of his 
subjects : " Make me a chain." So he made a chain 
for the king with just a few links, and the king 
said : " Double it," and he doubled it. Then the 
king said : " Double it again," and he doubled it 
again. Once more the king said, " Double it," and 
he doubled it again. And when the servant came 
back with the chain trailing at his heels, the king 
said to the other servants : " Bind him hand and 
foot." It is only a fanciful tale, but it tells the 
truth. Not holding to the truth, not yielding to 
parental restraint, sinning against your father's 
honour, trampling underneath your mother's love, 



202 THE PRODIGAL 

telling the first obscene story, looking at the first 
vulgar picture, hiding some special sin, taking 
money that is not jour own, lifting the cup to your 
lips ! At length you are in a meeting like this and 
you hear me pleading, pleading, pleading, and you 
half rise up and then you sink hack and say : " My 
God ! My God ! I am in bondage." 

Henry Clay Trumbull tells in one of his books 
the old story of an animal trainer in London, who 
came out on the stage before a great audience with 
a number of lions about him. There was one espe- 
cially, a !N~umidian lion, that attracted attention. 
He spoke to it and it cowered at his feet like a 
frightened dog. There was a Bengal tiger too. 
The trainer cracked his whip and the tiger ran like 
a cat. Finally, they brought in a great serpent, and 
the trainer stood while round and round his body 
the serpent wrapped itself. At length the serpent's 
head was at the man's neck. When the trainer 
speaks of course the serpent will unwind. He 
speaks and waits. Something is wrong. Those who 
are close to him notice that his face is beginning to 
whiten. Presently there is a sound of bones crack- 
ing ; in a moment he dropped dead. He had bought 
that little serpent when it was eighteen inches long. 
He could have killed it with the pressure of his 
fingers. But it killed him with its mighty power. 
I do not know any other name to give to sin. I do 
not know anything hateful enough to say about sin. 
It is a serpent and it will crush you. I am afraid 



THE PRODIGAL 203 

to let this meeting close unless you are saved. 
Come, friends, come! There is a way of escape. 
It is blood-marked. It is by way of the Christ on 
Calvary. What a wonderful Saviour we have! 
Come ! 

I can see the boy coming home. Not as he went 
out. Dogs snarl at him. Men shout at him. Chil- 
dren cast stones at him. There is this about com- 
ing home. You have to go back as far as you went 
away. This is what repentance means. But there 
is this fine thing about coming back. When you 
went away, you walked alone. When you come 
back, you walk every step of the way with Him. 
He says : " I will never leave you. I will never 
forsake you." The prodigal's father saw him and 
took him in his arms. The boy was in rags, but 
his father kissed him and put a robe about him and 
gave him shoes to wear, and took him home. 'Now 
once more, I look at the scene with my imagination. 
I have always thought that when the boy got inside 
the house (tradition says that while he was away 
his mother died) he must have looked all about 
him. Do you remember the day of your mother's 
funeral? Do you remember the afternoon you 
came back after leaving your boy in the grave ? Do 
y@u recall that when you came back to the house it 
seemed barer than ever. Your voice had a kind of 
an echo. There was a deathly chill in the house. 
So I can see the boy come in and look around, and 
then I can hear him say with a sob : " Father, 



204 THE PRODIGAL 

where is mother ? " Ah, that is the tragedy of sin. 
Sin makes great differences in life. We cannot for- 
get, but God both forgives and forgets. To-night 
He is calling, calling! 

A Salvation Army woman was going along the 
streets of one of the cities of Canada, and she 
noticed a certain house and knew that there was 
something wrong. She rapped at the door and 
there was no answer. There was no fire in the 
stove, and there was a chill about the place. She 
walked through the rooms and came to a bedroom, 
a very little room, and there on the bed she saw an 
unconscious woman. Quickly she started the fire 
and made some broth and pressed it to the cold lips. 
Soon a touch of color came, and the eyes opened. 
As she bent down she heard the woman saying: 
" Thank you. I never thought I would come to 
life again. My boy went away and left me. I have 
had nothing to eat. I was starving." When she 
got a little more strength, she said : " They say he 
was a drunkard, but he always loved his mother. 
He used to come in drunk at night, but he would 
never go to sleep until he had patted my face and 
smoothed my hair. He used to say : c Mother, sing 
to me.' I would sing, and often he would come out 
of his drunken stupor. If he were only here I 
know I could speak to him and he would answer." 

The Salvation Army woman ran away to Police 
Headquarters, and came back with a phonograph. 
She put it on a table by the woman's bedside, and 



THE PRODIGAL 205 

put the receiver close to her mouth, and said to her : 
" !N"ow, speak." And this is what she said : " My 
precious boy, your old mother has been very sick 
since you went away. Her hair is whiter. Her 
hands are thinner. Her voice is weaker. But, oh, 
my boy, if you would only come back, I would take 
you in my arms and kiss you and sing to you." 
With that she dropped on the pillow and was gone. 
They took the record out to the mountain and sent 
it out among the miners, for they knew that her 
boy was there. One day a Salvation Army worker, 
who had discovered the boy, said to him : " If you 
will come with me I will let you hear a special 
record." He set it going and went out of the room. 
The boy dropped on his knees, and when the phono- 
graph stopped he rushed out of the room and cried : 
" Come back. That is my mother's voice. Start it 
again." So the phonograph was started again, and 
the worker states that later when he came back into 
the room, he found the boy on his knees with his 
face buried in his arms, sobbing as if his heart 
would break. " Mother, mother," he was crying, 
" I am going home. I am going home." Sweeter 
than any mother's voice is the voice of Jesus, say- 
ing to-night : " Come back ! Come back ! " 



XVIII 
GOING HOME 

THE subject of my sermon is " Going 
Home." Perhaps it might be better to 
call it an interrupted confession. I am 
speaking again about the Prodigal 'Son, but now I 
wish to emphasize his going home. The text is in 
Luke 15 : 22 — " But the father said to his servants, 
Bring forth the best robe and put it on him, and 
put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet." 

Can you imagine yourself for a moment at the 
boy's side, when, broken-hearted, he determined to 
go back to his father's house ? He has even made 
up his mind what he will say. " I will say, oh, 
father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy 
sight, and I am no more worthy to be called thy 
son. Make me as one of thy hired servants." But 
he never said all that. Open your New Testament 
and see where the father interrupted him. The 
prodigal is almost home, and looking up he sees his 
father coming out to meet him. His father is al- 
most too far away to hear, but the boy starts in 
with his confession, anyway. " I have sinned 
against Heaven, father. I have sinned against 
Heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy 
to be called thy son." And just there his father 
interrupted hm. The father said to his servants: 

206 



GOING HOME 207 

" Bring forth quickly the best robe and put it on 
him and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his 
feet." Just the moment the boy confessed himself 
wrong, that moment his father gives him the kiss, 
sends for the ring, bids them bring the robe, and 
starts back with his long-lost son to the desolated 
home. I can imagine how the heart of the father, 
as well as the heart of the boy, must have over- 
flowed with joy. 

I bring you this message this evening, because 
some of you here must start home to-night. I was 
standing one day in the prison in Joliet, Illinois. I 
was an invited guest to see the institution, and as 
I was standing there a messenger came from the 
warden and asked me to preach on the following 
Sunday. I said that I would do so, and the mes- 
senger started away. In a moment he returned, 
and said : " By the way, the warden told me to 
say to you, sir, that if you could come next 'Sunday, 
he requests you not to preach on the prodigal son." 
And then he added, with a smile : " We have had 
twenty-four ministers, by actual count, and every 
single one of them has preached on the prodigal. 
Those poor fellows, who can't go out of church 
when they don't like the preacher, have had as much 
prodigal as they can stand. So don't tell the story 
of the prodigal son." I was younger in my minis- 
terial experience then, and so I said to him : " Very 
well. Tell the warden that I shall choose another 
theme." But I have often thought that it was a 



X 



208 GOING HOME 

mistake. Nearly always when I have an oppor- 
tunity to speak in prison I turn instinctively to this 
picture. 

What a marvellous picture it is. Indeed, the whole 
picture is wonderful. You see the lost sheep and 
the shepherd searching, the lost piece of money 
and the woman seeking, and, finally, the lost boy 
and the father waiting. It is all a beautiful picture 
of Jesus Christ in his matchless love, and of God, 
the Father, in His never-ending mercy. And one 
of the finest touches about it all is this interrupted 
confession. Just as the son had confessed that he 
was not worthy to be called his father's son, and 
was on the point of asking to be made one of his 
hired servants, just there the father burst in with a 
command to his servants — " Bring forth the best 
robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, 
and shoes on his feet." That is a revelation of the 
father's heart. I must remind you once more that the 
boy's sufferings really began before he left home. 
He had never acknowledged with his lips, but out 
in the land of sin he had more sorrow and pain than 
his heart could hold. The sad thing about it, 
though, was that he did not realize in his wander- 
i ings that he was hurting others even while he was 
1 hurting himself. If I could help you all to under- 
stand this, every father here would be a Christian, 
and every mother would turn her face towards 
Christ. You resist Jesus Christ as a father, and 
you give your boy a handicap in the race of life. 



GOING HOME 209 

You turn away from Christ as a mother, and your 
daughter has a barrier over which she can hardly 
pass. I went one day, years ago, in the northern 
part of New York, to ask a boy to join the church. 
His answer was : "I shall do so when my father 
joins." Then I went to the father, a great paper 
manufacturer, and I said to him : " Mr. So and So, 
I have just asked Dan to be a Christian." " Well, 
what did he say ? " He said that he would do so 
when you took your stand. Instantly he dropped 
his pen and turned to me and said : "If I am a 
barrier in my boy's way, I shall meet you at the 
church this evening." We help or hinder one 
another. 

EVery boy in this building whose life is wrong 
strikes a blow at his father. Every boy or girl who 
is living a prodigal life strikes a blow at the mother. 
Sam Jones told me a story the last time I saw him 
that I have never forgotten. " An old, gray-haired 
man in my town," said the evangelist, " sat waiting 
in his room till the clock struck one. His two boys 
came staggering home into his presence. He rose 
with a white face and, with eyes that could not shed 
tears, walked to his desk, opened a drawer and took 
out two revolvers. Then he turned to his boys, who 
were trembling in their sin, and said : ' Boys, I 
have a request to make of you. I want one of you 
to take this revolver and the other the other one, 
and I want you both to climb the stairway to your 
mother's room and I want you to kill your mother 



210 GOING HOME 

instantly.' They were sobered in a moment. 
1 Why, father !' they said. Then the old man's 
tears came like rain as he said to his boys, in a 
hoarse whisper : c Ten thousand times better than 
that you should kill her by inches. She has been 
crying all night since you went away. She has suf- 
fered beyond human description.' " Somehow when 
we sin we seem to forget that we are hurting others 
as well as ourselves. 

This boy was unmindful of the end. In his prod- 
igal life everything was going out and nothing com- 
ing in. You are making a terrible mstake, one that 
will last on into eternity, if you fail to lay hold 
upon that whch is spiritual. If you are trained 
mentally, and not spiritually, if you are trained 
physically and not spiritually, when the crisis of 
life comes you will have no power to resist evil. 
Everything going out and nothing coming in. This 
boy seemed to forget, too, that his life was a revolt. 
This is what sin is. Everyone who is away from 
Jesus Christ is at enmity with God. 

A gentleman wrote to me this week, asking a 
question : " What constitutes a Christian ? " I 
replied : " The personal acceptance of Jesus Christ 
as a Saviour, and a sincere surrender of one's will 
to God." I believe that this constitutes a Christian 
in the first stages of Christian living. I stand here 
to say that unless you lay hold on Jesus Christ, 
unless you take God's plan for your life, and live it 
out, when the crisis comes there will be no help. 



GOING HOME £11 

Temptation will be too strong. Doubt will be too 
severe. I said in a speech one evening that a man 
may be worth a million, but if he has no faith in 
Jesus Christ, and his baby should die, all his for- 
tune would profit him nothing. I saw a man rise 
hurriedly from the audience and walk quickly out 
of the door. Two or three days later I met him, 
and he said : " I am the man to whom you spoke 
that night. I have a million and more, and I have 
a little baby boy. When you said that, I made my 
way from the church to my house and to the boy's 
nursery and knelt down by his crib and I said: 
( Oh, God, if this little boy should die, it would 
kill me. All the money I have in the bank would 
not keep my heart from breaking. With my face 
buried in my hands I took your Saviour.' " This is 
what I want you to do this evening. I do not know 
how I can present additional argument. For four 
long weeks I have stood on this platform pleading 
with men and women to come to Christ. I have 
tried to lift up Jesus Christ and present Him as 
the only Saviour. If you will but turn your eyes 
toward Him, you can be delivered from sin. You 
can be set free from bondage. To-night I plead 
with you to come. 

The other day in Brooklyn a prominent minister 
was called to conduct a funeral service. The 
funeral was in one of Brooklyn's most magnificent 
homes. The daughter of a multi-millionaire had 
died. When the minister entered he spoke to the 



212 GOING HOME 

father and mother and then to the son, who was 
plainly intoxicated. Later, when he arose to read 
the burial service, suddenly the old man, the gray- 
haired millionaire, pushed his way past him, took 
hold of the side of the casket, dropped his head, 
and was heard to be whispering : " Daughter dead, 
son disgraced, billiards, society, the club, bank all 
week, club every evening, automobile all day Sun- 
day, money, wine, cards, no Christ, no family wor- 
ship, no Bible, no hope ! V The old man stood for 
a, moment staggering as if he would fall, then he 
dropped his head in his arms, this man of millions, 
and cried as if his heart would break. Something 
like this must have come to the boy there in the 
land of sin. Everything had been going out and 
nothing coming in. Then it was that he said to 
himself : " I will arise and go to my father." 
When the father heard him confessing his sin he 
interrupted him with these words : " Bring forth 
the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on 
his hand, and shoes on his feet." Oh, the wonder- 
ful love of the Eather ! Oh, the pardoning grace of 
Jesus Christ! 

I need to say but two or three things to you. The 
prodigal came to himself. That is, he began to 
think. Mr. Alexander told me that when he walked 
down one of these aisles last night one of your promi- 
nent citizens said : " Mr. Alexander, I am going 
to do this." And Mr. Alexander said to him: 
" When % " "I am going to do it before your meet- 



GOING HOME 213 

ings close/' was the reply. A week ago to-day a 
gentleman whom we all knew was singing in the 
choir. To-night he is gone. There is in this audi- 
ence a young man brought here by one of his 
friends, bound with a passion for drink, struggling 
with all his might to be free, but he has failed 
again and again and again. If I could only help 
him to come to himself to-night. When the sinner 
comes to himself, he sees his sin in a new light. We 
are almost at the close of the meetings. I do not 
know that I shall ever lose out of my mind the 
impression of your faces. To-morrow may be 
eternity. I say when a man comes to himself he 
understands the real facts of sin. He knows what 
a terrible master it is and what poor wages it pays. 
When the prodigal came to himself he said: 
" How many hired servants of my father have 
bread enough and to spare." There is a fine touch 
there that I do not want you to miss. The prodigal 
was out there among the swine, feeding upon the 
husks, and suddenly there came to him a vision of 
his home. It must have been a good home. Other- 
wise the memory of it would not have come to him 
in that way. I want to ask you fathers and 
mothers, what kind of a home are you giving to 
your children? What kind of an atmosphere are 
you making for them ? If I should go back through 
this crowd this evening and find your boy and speak 
to him, would your life as a father or a mother 
help me to win him to Christ ? Stop a moment and 



214 GOING HOME 

think about this. What kind of influences are you 
fathers and mothers throwing about your children ? 
You who are prominent business men, what kind 
of an example are you setting to the younger people 
of your city ? You are hesitating to rise and walk 
down one of these aisles, and take your stand for 
Christ. You have been saying to yourself: I will 
go into the church, but I will not walk down the 
aisle. If one of you strong successful men should 
come down here and take my hand, some boy yon- 
der, it might be your own boy, would be profoundly 
moved. Is it not worth while for a strong man to 
set a good example before a boy or girl? The 
prodigal had a vision of his home, and he said : "I 
will arise," and he was back home even before he 
started. All you need to say is: I will. I like 
people to sob their way into the kingdom. I like 
to hear people shouting. I like the method of the 
Salvation Army, the penitent form. We have a 
way of being too easy about going into the king- 
dom. We enter in too gentle a fashion. It might 
be well if some would come with a shout. Then I 
like also the quiet way that many have of coming 
to Christ. 

In one of the churches of Philadelphia a great 
manufacturer sat listening to a sermon by his min- 
ister. Suddenly he folded his arms and dropped 
his head and said to himself : " I will settle it 
here." When he had an opportunity he said to one 
of the officers : " When will the church officers 



GOING HOME 215 

meet?" "To-day," was the answer. "Then I 
will go and meet them." Taking his place before 
the officers, he said: " I have for years had an in- 
tellectual perception of Jesus, but this morning I 
made up my mind that I owed it to Him and to 
myself to announce my faith, and I now accept 
Jesus as my Saviour." One of the officers said: 
" I move that we receive him at once." As quietly 
as a June day is born he came into the kingdom. I 
like these little inquirer's cards that we use at the 
meetings. A man may take his pen in his hand 
and put down his name and thus sign away a mil- 
lion dollars. So a man may take this little card 
and sign his name and settle the question for 
eternity. But hear me, whether you sob at an altar, 
or sit quietly in the conference room, or hold your 
pen in your hand and write on a card, — You can 
never be saved until you say : I Will. 

When he came to his father to confess his sin, the 
father interrupted him in the midst of his confes- 
sion. I think this is fine. So many men have said 
to me : What about my past sins ? What about my 
failures in past years? The moment you come to 
God through Jesus Christ and accept His Son as 
your Saviour, God will be satisfied and you will 
be justified. Do you know what justification 
means? You see these white pages in the little 
book in my hand. Now do you know what justifi- 
cation means ? It means this : That when by faith 
you accept Jesus Christ and turn from your sins, 



216 GOING HOME 

God, for Christ's sake, receives you and you are 
justified every whit. And in the sight of God your 
life is as clean and white as the pages of this book. 
If I could only get you started to Christ. If I 
could only bring you to say: I will. I am per- 
fectly willing to make you cry if only you can be 
made ready to decide. I heard General Booth say 
once that a man was never at his best until he 
either laughed or cried. If I could start your tears 
and move your wills, and hear you say : " God be 
merciful to me a sinner," I would gladly do it. 

I know a doctor who was coming up one day on 
the Southern Railway from Atlanta. On the train 
he noticed a man who was very nervous. He would 
put on his overcoat and take up his travelling bag 
and walk up the aisle, and presently he would drop 
into his seat again. My friend said to him: 
"What is the matter with you?" "Oh," he re- 
plied, " I have been in Atlanta and I am going 
home. I went down a blind man. I have been in 
the care of a physician. He operated on my eyes 
and I can see. Do you know I have lived on this 
railway all my life and I have never seen these 
towns before ? " They passed another town and he 
rushed to the window to see it. He went on talk- 
ing : " I expect my wife and children to meet me 
at the second station from this. I have never seen 
them before, but I can see them now." When the 
train reached the station, the man with one spring 
was down the steps and rushing through the crowd. 



GOING HOME 217 

My friend saw him catch his wife in his arms. She 
kissed his open eyes again and again. His children 
clung to the skirts of his coat. The train started 
to move, and as my friend sprang hack on the steps, 
he heard the man say : " Glory, glory, I can see, 
I can see ! " As the train pulled out he could still 
hear the words: "I can see, I can see." I would give 
anything in the world to-night if I could put those 
words on your lips. It would be a wonderful ex- 
perience if you could cry out to-night: I can see, 
I can see. 

Did you ever notice what the father did? He 
kissed him. He did not wait until he was cleaned 
up. Sometimes a man says: I am going back 
home, and I am going to quit this or that bad habit. 
You are starting wrong. Come first. Come right 
away. I like this old hymn: 

" Just as I am without one plea, 
But that Thy blood was shed for me." 

Just as you are, come. And the father said: 
" Bring the best robe." Then he put the robe on 
him from his head to his heels, and the robe covered 
the marks of his wanderings. And then he said: 
" Put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet." 
The ring stands for reconciliation with the father. 
The father puts a ring on the prodigal's hand and 
shoes on his feet. He is a. slave no longer. He is 
a son. He is fit to stand in the presence of his 
father. Listen to me. I bid you come. Come ! 



218 GOING HOME 

The other day a cashier in a bank in New York 
was sentenced to Sing Sing for ten years. He had 
begun to go wrong some years before. Many times 
he had been asked to accept Jesus Christ as his 
Saviour, but he had spurned Him. And now the 
tide of the world was against him. When he came 
up for trial they told the judge about his wife and 
daughter. His friends said to him : " Deal with 
him as kindly as you can." So he was sent up for 
ten years only. His little girl came home from 
school and said : " Mother, I am never going back 
to school. I heard a girl say that my father is a 
thief." Next morning she was too ill to rise. The 
next day she was in a fever, and the next day she was 
hovering between life and death. The Governor of 
the State sent a message to the prison : " Send that 
man back to be with his daughter over night." 
When he reached the house, he went up into the 
room tip-toe, for she was sleeping. The sound of his 
sobs awoke her, and smiling up at him she said: 
" I knew you would come back. Put your face 
down on my pillow as you used to do, and, father, 
kiss me." And the father put his lips against his 
child's face and kissed her just as she went home. 
The doctor said she died of a broken heart. The 
man never knew when he started to sin and spurned 
his Saviour, he never knew that he was going to 
kill his child. You never can tell how far sin will 
reach. You cannot tell when you say " no " to 
Christ, how far your decision will reach. It is a 



GOING HOME 219 

blow to those who love you, but I will tell you some- 
thing more. When you resist my Saviour, it is a 
blow to Him. The Bible says that rejecting Christ 
is crucifying Him afresh. Every refusal is like 
driving the nails through His hands and feet. Take 
Him then to-night. Come, my friends, and take 
Him to-night. I have finished my message. 
Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as 
white as snow! 



EVANGELISTIC WORK 




EVANGELISTIC 
PRE ACHING 



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